The Sound of Silence
by Maraudercat
Summary: It's been eight and a half years since Wiress Ling fought her way free of the Hunger Games arena. Every year since she has travelled to the Capitol to watch children from District Three die in her care. But changes are coming to Panem, a soft whisper of rebellion that begins echoing around the districts and grows louder with every passing year. Sequel to Tears of an Angel.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognize belongs to Suzanne Collins and others who hold rights to the Hunger Games.

* * *

There's a hard frost on the ground when the Victory Tour for the 56th Hunger Games rolls into District Three. I flick the wall-mounted TV on in the lab I share with Beetee as mandatory viewing starts and watch as our newest victor steps out, shivering in the flimsy red-and-purple sleeveless dress, waving vigorously to try and warm herself up. Beetee shoots the screen a dark look—he hates noise distractions of any sort while he's doing fiddly work—and reaches out for the micro-screwdriver set I appropriated earlier. I hand it to him absently, still watching as young Cecelia Weaver delivers a brief (and clearly scripted) reply to the waiting reporters and hustles eagerly to the nearby car. She does well considering how mentally distraught she was just six months ago. In her post-Games interviews she was barely able to form a coherent sentence as she mourned the death of her district partner, whom she apparently fell in love with over the few weeks she knew him.

Of course, she found solace quickly enough in the dead boy's brother and their sweeping romance has been the talk of every news channel for the past six months as well as the subject of several terrible books and a thinly-veiled movie due to be released next month. Considering how pretty she is, I'm just glad for her that she's found a way to avoid sponsor "dates" in the Capitol. For now, at least.

I didn't really get a chance to interact with her during the Games (my tribute, a timid girl named Arissa died to the boy from Four in the bloodbath and I'd moved out of the Training Centre to my apartment by the end of day three) so I'm moderately curious to hear what she has to say for herself at the dinner tonight. Or what she has to say to Beetee; I'm not very good at keeping a conversation going.

"That's done for now," Beetee mutters behind me, brushing his hair from his face and readjusting his glasses. I pick up the now-enclosed casing, nodding approvingly at the miniscule screws holding it in place and rest it gently on our shared shelf of partially completed projects.

"You should probably-" I gesture at his flushed face, grease smudged along his left cheek, and his tousled hair.

"Wash up, yes," he replies sullenly, glaring again at the screen. "Oh well, I suppose it's just one night's work lost."

He stretches as he stands and, with an unenthusiastic wave, makes his way up the stairs to his house. I turn and head up my own stairs, stopping briefly in the kitchen to check on my brother, who is frowning at his homework. Malcon, despite his handicaps, has always been good at spatial problems and at following simple progressive logic and instructions. Today he appears to be working on a history assignment, his neat block-like letters surrounded by scribbled-out words as he chews on the end of his pen. I tap the table to get his attention and earn a vague smile, followed by a despondent head-shake as he mutters "Stupid writing."

His voice cracks slightly, though he doesn't seem to notice as he goes back to jabbing his pen moodily at the paper, trying to force out words that will make sense to others. He's not much better at that than I am. My mother smacks my hand as I wander through the kitchen and sneak a slice of apple from her in-progress pie, then reminds me that I'm just as much in need of a clean-up as Beetee was. She goes back to humming as she cooks and I wonder absently how my parents will cope with moving back to the small apartment in the district centre in a few years when Malcon turns eighteen.

At least they'll all have each-other as I doubt Malcon will have any interest in going his own way or trying to start a family. With Ezra, Laney and their kids only a few floors away, it will be me that is lacking for company when that day comes. As much as I enjoy my peaceful solitude and spending hours working with Beetee, I'm not sure how I'll cope with just the two of us clanking around the Victor's Village.

~xXx~

I visit Balia's grave as the Victory Tour train rolls out, continuing on to the last legs of its long journey. Poor Cecelia, who was partially responsible for the deaths of both tributes from One and Two, will probably have a rough time in the inner districts. Her sudden love affair with the younger brother of her district partner appears to be more legitimate than I thought, though, judging by her replies to Beetee's questions. She was practically glowing every time she talked about him and it sounded quite serious for a pair of just-turned-seventeen-year-olds. I toss a small flower to the wind to wish her luck with this and return to settling the rest of the bouquet on my little sister's gravestone.

I bring Balia flowers every week that I'm not in the Capitol and sit and talk to her about my life in my usual half-stuttering way. Some days when I close my eyes I can almost hear her taking up the other side of the conversation. More often than not the flowers come from our own garden these days, a greenhouse we convinced the district officials to build out here shortly after returning from that awful Quell Games. Seeder helped us stock it with low-maintenance plants and I sometimes go sit in there to read or nap when I feel the world closing in on me.

After I finish telling my sister all about our newest victor (who she definitely would have liked) I stand, stomping my feet to get feeling back in my legs and walk the last flower over to the more recent cemetery area. They keep the victors' graves separated from the mere tributes with a low iron fence and the headstones are fancier, with gold edging and a polished marble carving of the person's face. For whatever reason, they chose to make Cupros' bust look like his teenaged self. His sudden death nearly three years ago (the doctor said it was an apoplexy of the brain triggered by his long-term alcohol abuse) shocked us all. He pretended to be a grumpy old man, but he was there to help me when I needed it most and I always remember him in his better moments. A light drizzle of sleet starts falling, prompting me to head back inside to the warmth of my hard-earned home and my remaining loving family.

~xXx~

It rains at the reaping for the 57th annual Hunger Games. I watch from the slight shelter of the building roof lip as our escort, Gloria Goldacre draws our newest sacrifices, her intricate hairpiece sending off little cascades of water from its many-layered fronds. Herzty Howan and Zeedee Lam are also dripping when they reach the stage, and the boy interrupts Mayor Gowan's speech with a run of seven consecutive sneezes, earning a dark look.

It's only Gowan's fourth year in charge of Three but he has already managed to alienate the majority of the district through his harsh crack-downs on minor infringements and obvious pandering to the Capitol elite. He and I got off on the wrong foot right away when he made a comment during the Victory Tour dinner of the 52nd Games about the physically deformed and mentally handicapped needing to be put down as a useless waste of district resources. His blatant dislike of competent, intelligent women prevented any reconciliation and I've spent far too much of the last four years dealing with his petty rules and demands. He likes Beetee well enough though as my old mentor is a smart _man_ who brings prestige to Three with his clever inventions and patents. The last time Gowan stopped by in the Victor's Village to pass on some paperwork I overheard him telling Beetee that he would try and get an unofficial "training program" started in order to get our district another victor who wasn't a nutjob.

Neither of this year's kids look like they'll be fulfilling his wishes; dark scrawny Hertzy, eighteen and doesn't look it, whose surname is most common in the poor end of town. The scroungers and scrappers are no strangers to the reaping stage (large families and low wages means lots of tesserae) and they generally don't go down without a fight. Unfortunately they also seem to have a stubborn streak that usually gets them killed early because they think they can win through the bloodbath. This girl looks no different, sullen scowl prominent as she shakes her head periodically to clear the rain from her face. Zeedee looks middle class, from Chinatown judging by the name.

In a mingled district of mostly Asian subcultures that have been essentially eroded over the centuries in Panem and Old America before it, only two 'traditional' groups still exist. Chinatown, who hold a monopoly on the manufacture of certain household appliances, from the designers and engineers through to the factory overseers, is by far the larger one. Beetee grew up in their close-knit culture until his reaping and the resultant fall-out with his family post-Games, and has explained a bit of it to me over the years. Apparently they are all about putting family first (something he presumably failed to do, though he never went into any details) and as a result they also draw above average tesserae numbers. Chinatown families also own all three of the district's restaurants, and as much as the Capitol pushes for complete assimilation, they've allowed them to keep many of their more traditional recipes. Probably because the Capitol Liaisons enjoy eating there as much as the rest of us that can afford it. I don't recognize the boy, or the boy's parents who hurry anxiously through the doors of the Justice Building to say goodbye, so I guess he's not from the restaurant branch. Beetee also watches them with narrowed eyes, possibly recognizing the family from his youth. From what he's said there's probably only a thousand or so of the traditionalists left, a small trickle in the vast vat of our district.

I glance up in disgust as the rain turns into a true downpour and wait for a nearby Games staffer to offer me his umbrella before making the dash to the waiting cars. After eight years I've become used to the ritual of the Games and its four general steps:

Firstly there's the reaping, where we get to see whose blood is added to our hands this year. Since Balia's death, none of our tributes have made it past the fourth day in the arena. Over half have been dead in the first hour and the few that have escaped have spent their remaining short lives running and hiding until being caught and killed by hunting Careers. The only one with any real fight was Beetee's boy a few years back who managed to grab a knife and gut the girl from One with it during the opening minutes. Of course, this made him the pack's primary target and he died a slower and more painful death on the second evening.

The second stage of the Games for us mentors is the week of lead-up, where we are required to pretend that the chosen kids have any sort of chance of surviving. This includes arguments with stylists (Dido takes our girl every even year; the odd years have been older stylists bumped down from their senior districts for too many failures who know that this is their last chance to impress), futile attempts to attract new sponsors and pointless strategic discussions that never come to fruition.

The third stage, the actual Games, is generally quick for us. It's been four years since I had the money and a reason to send a sponsor gift and neither Beetee or myself have troubled our industry sponsors for funds. We do continue our work for them though, a continuous insurance against the slim chance we get a tribute who could defy the odds. This generally blurs into the fourth and final stage of finding enough distractions to allow me to escape from the spotlight and from my nightmares until the whole thing is over for another year. The last two years I holed up in the Mastersons' workshop once our tributes were dead, only returning to my apartment in the Victors' Spire to eat and sleep as I tried (and eventually succeeded) in fixing one of their ongoing problems.

Thankfully most Capitol citizens aren't all that interested in the odd, stammering girl from Three any more. They have their new favorites, the strong Career boys like Brutus, Noah and Felix. The cunning Career girls Felina and Gabriela. The ruggedly handsome outsiders Haymitch and Blight, and now the romantic sob-story beauty Cecelia. Apart from the two formal interviews, one during the training period, one following the death of my tribute I don't generally get dragged in front of a camera at all. If it weren't for the deaths of twenty-three children, the latter days of the Games would almost be a pleasant holiday.

This year is not much different to the last six. Both tributes spend the train ride arguing with us about going in for the good supplies at the Cornucopia. Our stylists (Lucia still for the boys, though I don't know why she hasn't been dropped, and Andromache who Diya gloats about losing to us) dress the kids in silver and yellow, respectively. Andromache tries to gel Hertzy's hair into lightning bolts but the thin, slick strands droop in the heat and she just looks like a mess. Zeedee laughs at her and she retaliates as soon as they're in the lift, cracking one of his ribs with a vicious shove into the railing. They both fail miserably at training and score predictably low in the rankings. Hertzy spends her interview pretending to be a vicious fighter who isn't afraid of anyone. The boy from Two leans at her as she re-takes her seat and she nearly falls out of the chair in fright, making everyone laugh at her and us. Zeedee, still a little high from the drugs that re-knitted the broken bone in his side, is only marginally coherent and loses the last thirty seconds of his interview time for swearing.

Zeedee lasts almost two and a half minutes past the opening gong, dying to the girl from Four who kicks him in his not-quite-recovered side and rams a knife through his throat while he's gasping in pain. Hertzy almost looks promising when she listens to my advice, grabs a handful of mediocre supplies and runs. The arena, a sparse forest filled with inter-connected underground cave systems, should be ok for our district. At least there's the opportunity to be clever with the underground transits and to set traps in the darkness.

I use our meagre sponsor funds to buy her some water purifiers while they're still cheap and open up discussions with the Mastersons and the Dixons in preparation of future possibilities. I watch on, spelled often by Beetee as the girl slowly becomes comfortable with the oppressive darkness and manages to successfully hunt and kill a bat which she eats raw. Clearly her years of living poor have given her a strong stomach and a creative survival streak, as she goes on to chip out two functional stone knives, wrapping their hilts in pieces of her shirt-hem. She even uses them to fight off a large blind rat-mutt which takes a bite out of her ankle. I start looking into the price of medicine when, on the fourth morning, she decides to limp out of her cave hide-out and refill her water bottle at a nearby stream in broad daylight. The Careers spot her, chase her and eventually catch her.

Swallowing down the sour taste of hope gone to failure, I scribble down a few lines for my final interview (Caesar knows to make the questions predictable for me if he wants anything close to coherent), trade a few words with Felina, the mentor of my tribute's killer and collect up my bags to be sent over to the Spire. I join Diya, Seeder, Chaff and Haymitch for a quick lunch, where the two men make a good start at another day-long bender. The young man from Twelve was quickly adopted into this group of victors and I like him well enough when he's not busy getting black-out drunk. As he picks a slurred argument with Diya about which of the remaining nine tributes will win (Diya called Evanna from Four from the start, while Haymitch is favoring either of the pair from One) I wonder why someone who is nearly as intuitively clever as I am feels the need to constantly pickle his brain. He and Chaff crack another bottle of spirits as I leave.

I stop by Lorcan's place after my outgoing interview. As Dido's second-in-command he now also only works every other Games year, spending the rest of his time managing her high-end clothing store. Over the years he and I have come to a pleasant understanding of friendship and he is one of the few Capitol residents I always make time to see. He greets me warmly, waving me inside where I see both his kids curled up on the couch for the evening mandatory viewing. I've met nine-year-old Portia enough times that the girl waves cheerfully at me. Her five-year-old half-brother scoots closer to her, probably not remembering me from visits in the past. He looks far more like his mother, a former prep-team member who I never got along with and who thankfully moved on to another job two years back. That was around the time she and Lorcan split (again) which apparently was somehow my fault as well as his. On the plus side, she gave Lorcan equal custody of their boy, something I know my old friend wanted badly as he generally only gets his daughter when her mother is off on some busy artistic tear.

I join them on the couch, forcing a smile as the girl starts telling me all about what I've missed in the last hour and about their general opinions of this year's Games. Young Portia has decided that she likes Topaz from One, an athletic eighteen-year-old with long, dark blonde curls and unusually pale brown eyes, the best among the tributes. Her opinion, she assures me is in no way biased by the fact that she has similar hazel eyes and a nearly identical hair-style, while her father rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, clearly amused.

I stay for dinner, watching with them as the Career pack hunts down the boy from Seven after spotting his sponsor-gift parachute. Little Flavius cheers as his favourite, Mighty from One, easily defeats his smaller foe. To the applauding little boy on the couch, and to most of the Capitol, the tributes are just characters in an exciting TV show, to be discussed and admired and, when their time is done, forgotten. There are some people, like Lorcan, who see it for what it really is though. They're the other people I sometimes meet with outside my usual small circle of scientists and engineers. Some of the other victors happen to meet with these people as well, as friendly acquaintances or potential sponsors, of course. It's not uncommon that they invite us to noisy restaurants for talks and meals, or down to the lakeside where the lapping of the water, the crunch of the stony path and the frequent wind gusts make it difficult to overhear. So far we've not achieved much more than a network of like-minded people. Unlike the previous Capitol rebel group I interacted with, these people are genuinely in agreement with the proposed changes we hope to see and I have a cautious hope that someday we may actually see the world change for the better.

As Portia starts discussing her future plans (right now she's tossing up becoming a hair stylist or a fashion model of her father's clothing, though she wouldn't say no to a role on her other favorite TV show or being a professional horse-rider) I force my mind back to the present. Maybe someday, should our group of like-minded thinkers come together with a plan of action rather than just talk, the children from the districts will be able to aspire to such lofty futures too.


	2. Chapter 2

I have a momentary scare during the reaping for the 58th Hunger Games when Gloria calls Maccom Lin to the stage. After all, what would be more fitting for the tenth anniversary of my Games than to have me mentor my fifteen-year-old brother? Then I remember that there's probably only a handful of people that would know or care that it's been a decade since I was called. I stop panicking when the short, stocky boy makes his way to the front, his spiked hair cut far too short to be my brother. My tribute, a round-faced seventeen-year-old unimaginatively named Switch Lee stumbles her way up the stairs, wincing as she bangs her shin on the concrete steps. I sigh and share a rueful glance with Beetee. Looks like just another year of the usual routine, though Beetee's been in contact with a potential new industrial sponsor who we will likely have plenty of time for.

As always I try to make an effort with the tributes, though my stuttered speech and general inability to hold a conversation often seems to make them nervous. Beetee's better at calming them down and convincing them that they're not guaranteed to die, though not by much if he has something else on his mind. He seems as relieved as I am when both kids decide they've eaten their fill and go take naps in their compartments to avoid Gloria's constant chatter.

Our escort has either gotten better every year, or we've just learned to tolerate her more with repeated exposure. Either way, I can stand to share a table with her and have learned to tune out her more inane ramblings. In return she doesn't object when she realises we aren't paying attention to a word she's saying, unless it's actually important and Games-related.

Apparently there was another Escort shuffle in the last twelve months which didn't objectively affect us, though I breathe a sigh of relief when I hear my old nemesis Carmenius Fallow has been booted once and for all. He was dropped from Four after all their victors complained and was bounced from Eight back to Eleven where he first started. His on-off partner Donella Grant, the utterly useless escort for Twelve has also been kicked, which will make Haymitch happy. I've heard the young man from Twelve complain constantly about her disdainful treatment of his tributes and her general inability to get even interested sponsors to sign over money.

Their replacements, a pair of young women named Camilla and Euphemia are, in Gloria's opinion, an improvement, though their inexperience will probably hurt Eleven and Twelve for the next few years. Not that those districts generally have much going for them, though I suppose they've had no worse a run than us in the last seven or eight years.

I let my mind wander for the rest of the journey and for the brief transit from the train station to the Remake Center, where I discover to my disgust that I somehow forgot to pack my newest mystery books. Starved for entertainment, I flip on the TV, though as always our channels block out any reaping-related information until the official evening replay.

The headline stories are still Games related though, with last year's strikingly pretty victor Topaz already seen out and about on the arm of her new Capitol lover, and a great deal of media speculation about a ring that Cecelia Weaver was spotted wearing as she boarded the train in District Eight post-reaping. Her constant boyfriend since her return home, the younger brother of her Games district-partner, would have been in his last reaping year I realize. It would only be sensible for them to wait until he was safe before progressing their relationship, though it's also not surprising that they have done so. Without the romantic love-story angle, pretty Cecelia would likely have her own string of "Capitol lovers".

I've noticed a startling increase in victors "dating" rich Capitolites in the last five or six years. It used to be that some victors would trade their temporary attentions in return for past and present sponsors, just as Beetee and I trade work and others trade endorsements of products or restaurants. These deals stayed mostly out of the public eye, though they were generally discussed moderately freely amongst ourselves. Now, though, each of the last few attractive victors (barring Cecelia of course) have had at least two or three high-profile "relationships" without any noticeable sponsorship deals in evidence. I don't know what exactly the victors are trading, but it seems that none of them are willing to discuss it. I'm just glad that it's not my problem, and if any of our tributes ever do make it out of the arena in the future, odds are it won't be their problem either.

~xXx~

We have a surprising new addition to the prep team that arrives the following morning to decorate our tributes. I open the door to the cheerful trilling of Juliette and Jania, who have come to collect Switch and Maccom for their trial by scrubbing. Peeking around behind them, eyes wide with curiosity is Lorcan's daughter Portia. She's dressed in the red-and-gold shirt that marks her an official Games Runner (a new initiative brought in after the 50th Games where rich or well-connected Capitol kids can volunteer to get experience with TV producers and stylists, and hang out with the victors, while providing all of us with useful and enthusiastic helpers) though generally they only take kids who are thirteen or older. As Portia's still a few years shy of that I suspect her father bribed someone to look the other way.

She grins at me unashamedly as I direct our kids out the door, Maccom already shying away from the women, shoulders hunched. From what I've seen of him so far he's an awkward, sullen boy who is dreading his treatment at the hands of our stylists nearly as much as facing death in the arena. Switch is at least likeable and not entirely unattractive, though I feel she lacks the killer instinct to make it far in the Games if luck doesn't carry her.

She stayed up talking with us after the reaping replay last night while Maccom slunk off to bed, curious to hear our first impressions of the other tributes and to glean whatever useful knowledge she could from myself and Beetee. When Beetee pressed her on what she might do in the arena, she didn't really have a plan though. I remember having that conversation with him before my own Games, how I already had a rough idea of using traps and snares to keep myself safe. Switch isn't quite as switched on as her name would imply, and beyond hiding out and maybe finding some strong allies she hasn't thought that far ahead. As Beetee said after the girl left to sleep, she's the sort of tribute that breaks your heart because she almost looks like she has a shot until she dies to something stupid in the first few days. Just like Hertzy.

The reaping itself had a few interesting surprises. For the first time in many years neither of the tributes from Four were volunteers, though the girl looks like she might have trained enough to keep up with the Career pack. In contrast, District Five had their second ever volunteer, a lean, pinch-faced girl with an odd darkness in her eyes and a determined set to her jaw. No-one has deduced her motivation yet, though I expect I'll get it out of Diya at some point. There was also a scuffle in Eleven when their boy tribute tried to run out the back of the reaping pens after his name was called. He didn't get far and the peacekeepers weren't gentle with him as they dragged him to the stage.

As usual, Dido outshines Lucia's stylistic efforts, making good use of Switch's short, straight hair by spiking it spherically with static electricity and giving her a gown that actually glows with eerie blue light around the collar. This last addition was apparently a suggestion of little Portia's, and one of the main reasons Lorcan agreed to bend the rules and get her in to official Games events. He confides to me in a brief moment of conversation on the second day of training that he's a little worried about Portia's constantly growing obsession with the Games, and how he hoped that seeing the tributes up close and in person might open her eyes to a new perspective. Instead, he informs me, his little girl "borrowed" several of Dido's sketch-books after the parade and started making (in his opinion, uniquely good) alterations to her designs.

None of it makes any difference when both kids score fours in training, make no lasting impression in the interviews and die on the first day fighting over weapons they don't have the strength or skill to use. Maccom goes down quickly, the long knife he managed to grab easily knocked aside by Starlight Ayers from One, who runs him through with her own slender blade. Switch technically escapes the bloodbath, though the throwing spear she takes to the shoulder from the girl from Four makes her easy prey for Rogan Tucker from Ten later that day. He takes her Cornucopia spoils—a small bag of dried fruit she stuffed in one pocket and a huge oddly-recurved blade that he actually has the strength to wield—and steps over her dead body without any apparent concern.

I catch up with Lorcan and Portia after my final interview, curious to see if the deaths of tributes she actually met have affected the young girl. She seems quieter than usual, not contributing much to our stop-start conversation over dinner in a small restaurant, though I notice during dessert that she's been sketching suit designs that incorporate cowboy imagery on her pile of napkins. Lorcan shakes his head helplessly and I earn a smile from both of them when I suggest she'd make a better stylist than half of those currently holding the title. She cheerfully offers to replace whoever we get assigned next year and a part of me wishes I could take her up on it.

Unlike most years I actually stay around the Training Center throughout the remaining Games days as my good friend Diya has a tribute with a chance. Her girl, who Diya confides to me volunteered because she's suffering from a probably terminal disease which could only be cured in the Capitol (the official story is that she's a lonely middle child "going for glory") manages a clean escape from the bloodbath and takes down Gannet Wilkes from Nine with a sling when the boy goes after her.

She builds a fortress of sorts on top of a lonely hill, creatively employing whatever comes to hand in constructing shelter for herself and a myriad of traps for any opponents who come near. The Gamemakers seem to consider her an amusing diversion and leave her be for the most part, though they spring her traps twice with first a beaver, then weasel mutts that she's forced to fight off. She seems to suffer frequent bouts of debilitating pain which Diya counteracts by draining all her sponsor funds to send painkillers. It's clear that even with this help Sarnia won't stand a chance once the Career pack hunts her down, but it's all Diya can do to aid her.

On the sixth evening of the Games an argument between Starlight and Cassian over who ate the last of their meat erupts into an all-out brawl between the five-member Career pack, ending in only the boy from Two limping away, his wrist and several of his ribs almost certainly broken. He encounters Rogan the next day, who easily bests the injured volunteer boy and begins gearing up for his final hunt. I sit up through the long night with Diya, watching as her girl Sarnia huddles behind her crude rocky walls, using up nearly all her sling-stones and traps fending off a prowling pack of wolves.

Apparently the Gamemakers decide it will be more cinematic (and also easier) to bring the boy to the fortress instead of forcing the girl out, and the wolf-pack turns and races through the woods, sniffing out the other remaining tribute. Rogan, who doesn't seem to have a good grasp on the narrative, tries to fight them off for a quarter hour before he realizes he's supposed to be running. Gasping for breath, he flees, his hefty blade left buried in a wolf's head as he scrambles to stay ahead of their snapping fangs. They slow down their pursuit as he nears Sarnia's fortress, but he doesn't seem to notice and he stumbles as he races over a pitted rise of rock, his momentum carrying him forwards over the sudden edge as he misses the turn in the curved path. The clever microphones hidden just below the arena surface carry the loud crack as he lands awkwardly from his twelve-foot fall. From the sharp angle of his head, it's clear he won't be getting up to finish his chase.

Sarnia collapses, weeping with shock and joy as the trumpets blare to signal her victory. Diya, who also appears shocked at her unexpected success (she didn't predict her girl to get past the third day, let alone win) shakes herself free of her surprised stupor and offers old Abram a handshake as they both make their way to the waiting cameras.

~xXx~

I'm forced to hurry to meet several deadlines for our industry sponsors as there's just a two-day delay between the ending and Sarnia's final appearances. Beetee and I spend the last night in the Capitol holed up in his room in the Victor's Spire bouncing ideas and solutions off one-another so that we have something to give Audita Berry and Co. before we leave in the morning. We both pause to share an amused smile as we hear Tolby's drunken bellowing outside the door just after midnight, coupled with slurred reassurances from whoever is carrying him to bed (my guess would be Chaff, probably aided by Blight or Haymitch). There's a sudden blare of loud music from an open window on one of the floors above around two which is followed shortly by an explicit command to turn it down or face the graphically described consequences. I think I recognize the voice as Rhea, a bluntly-spoken middle-aged victor from Two who is probably still capable of inflicting the threatened appendage-breaking. The music quiets to a faint murmur.

We wind down our work just before three and I'm not quite able to dodge a group of returning revellers in the lift as I try to head back to my own room. Glory, Noah and Felix appear to have been enjoying the night judging by the eye-watering waft of alcoholic fumes as the lift doors open. I wave them on and step back, indicating that I'll wait but Glory has none of it, reaching forward to sling an arm around my shoulders and drag me in. Two young Capitol women are also crammed in the back, one of them nuzzling at Noah's neck. The other lady gives me a dark look and starts fondling Felix, who doesn't appear to object. Glory, who seems to regularly forget he's thirty-three not twenty-three laughs drunkenly and squeezes the arm around my shoulders a little tighter. I roll my eyes at him and detach myself from his grip. He grins and lets me do so without any fuss, which is why we're friends.

I know both of the younger boys have each had several rich Capitol 'lovers' over the last few years but, judging by their enthusiasm, these appear to be ladies of their own choice. I leave them to it, pushing Glory out the door when the lift stops on his level and ignoring the now-kissing couples for the few seconds it takes to reach the next floor and the safety of my room. I wonder idly if the quartet in the lift will notice when it's their turn to leave or whether they'll ride up and down in it for a bit. Not that I care as long as they're out of the way by morning. Well, later morning.

I've avoided the clubs, parties and other similar large public gatherings since…since Clara's death, really. Apart from the headache-inducing noise and panic-inducing closeness (unless I'm sufficiently buzzed on drink or drugs), they remind me too much of my relatively innocent youth. Back when the big problems were helping Clara sneak out to meet her forbidden boyfriend and trying to get a certain attractive prep-team member to notice me.

I try to remember the last time I shared a kiss with someone. It was either Lorcan (a brief resurgence that perhaps did tip the tide in his relationship with Euthalia a few years back) or possibly Glory who kissed me after a silly discussion about him finding all women beautiful in their own way got out of hand. That was at the memorial celebration for Arkose, a grumpy older victor from Two, about two months after Noah's victory tour I recall. They had far too many jugs of some sweet wine for us to toast his memory and we were all a bit sore-headed at the train station the next morning. Poor Beetee didn't talk the entire train-ride home, he was that unwell.

I often think my dear friend and mentor hates public events even more than I do. He's better at actually holding a conversation but he doesn't really get along with most of the Career victors or the rowdier non-Careers who enjoy carousing. For whatever reason I do, at least in the sense I don't feel unwelcome around the group near my own age. I rarely contribute much to any conversations though, and I'm less friendly with the younger Career victors than the ones who were around before me. Perhaps it is just an age thing and eventually I'll stick with just my own crowd too, until I grow old and die and they all come get drunk at my memorial.


	3. Chapter 3

Beetee and I get side-tracked into re-developing several industrial fabric dyeing machines after heavy fall rains precipitate severe flooding in District Eight. Their swollen river overflows its banks, spilling over their woefully ineffective sandbag barrier in just two short hours and wiping out a full parallel street-length of factories. Well, the buildings are still mostly standing but the electronics fry. The Capitol apparently can't handle sudden shortages of purple and blue cloth, so they draft a team of 'experts' to speed up the recovery process.

The man in charge, a surprisingly practical Capitol Liaison named Pomponius Thompson makes efficient use of all our skills, though he refuses to let us lend any aid to the poor residents who have also been displaced by the unfriendly waters. I focus on coordinating the deconstruction of the surviving equipment and its reassembly into smaller functional units that will tide over some of the workers until a more permanent rebuilding can be completed. If I learned anything from the terrible factory fires in Three a few years back, it was to make sure the regular district folk have some form of income while they try to get back on their feet. If we can't directly help those who are suffering I'll do what I can indirectly.

Beetee, who takes on the project of waterproofing the electricals to prevent further floods from such high levels of destruction, makes me take breaks to eat and rest, though he too looks tempted to 'accidentally' drop his provided midday meal near a huddled group of now-homeless children. Cecelia Weaver and her soon-to-be husband Mack Gerchell both stop by in the afternoon to see if there's anything they can do to help and end up talking Pomponius into employing most of the hungry kids to help clean out the rest of the mud and grime from the factory shells. I try not to think too much on how they're going to cope through the rapidly approaching winter once this little bit of money runs out.

We're invited to dinner at the Mayor's house that night, listening with some amusement as the two Capitol team members who have never been out to the districts before discuss how rural and bleak the scenery and the food are. Pomponius, Yesella Grant (another of Eight's regular Capitol Liaisons) and a man named Navier Stokes from Five (an expert on hydro systems here to help fix the flooding protections) also seem entertained by their naïve colleagues. Yesella baits the two wide-eyed younger Capitolites with various urban legends that sound suspiciously familiar (Eight and Three are pretty similar as far as districts go I guess) and leaves young Igerna and bright but unworldly Phaedrus looking spooked.

Pomponius and Yesella leave for their assigned houses after we've finished eating while the rest of us make the short walk to the district's inn, which apparently sees even less use than the one in Three. Then again, most of our Liaisons travel in and out when needed rather than keep up houses of their own. I spot Igerna peering suspiciously into dark corners, perhaps worried that a knife-wielding figure in a fancy hat and frock coat will leap out and attack her.

By the end of a week the pair are less jumpy, though constantly complaining of boredom and limited TV channels at night. I've had enough of their whining, the general bustle of noise and people and the long lines of dispirited faces that watch our efforts from just beyond the taped-off barriers. Beetee is also reaching the end of his coil and has taken to answering inane chatter and stupid questions with abrupt one-word replies. I outright stopped answering these three days ago, so I guess I can't complain.

With about a sixth of the machinery rebuilt to function, our services are apparently no longer required and we are shipped out on their next supply train along with ten carriages of fabric and clothing. Payment for our services, we are both assured, will be added to our next victor's salary instalment. I think about suggesting it be added to our Games sponsor funds instead as neither of us needs the extra money, but that would almost certainly be a waste and it will probably do more good in our pockets than the Gamemakers'.

Without permits we aren't allowed out of the Capitol train station while we wait for the connecting train back to Three. I kill time with my sketchbook, making its last four empty pages stretch to fill the three hour wait. Beetee sits with his chin resting on clamped fists, watching me draw, though his mind seems to wander often as he tends to shift in his seat and glances around every time I look up. I end up doodling a rough portrait of him in my last clean corner just to see if he notices. If he does he doesn't react, though with my limited life-drawing skills he may just not recognize it's supposed to be him.

Once we board the regular afternoon train to Three the rocking motion lulls me into a doze and I wake to discover I've ended up leaning on Beetee's shoulder. I apologize quickly and pull myself away, knowing how much he generally hates physical contact with others, though he seems to tolerate it from me the best. He gives me a strange look as I re-settle on one of the empty seats. I try a smile and remind him that without Ezra handy, he's there to fill in. He forces a smile of his own at that and goes back to staring out the window, watching the dead earth roll by. I figure he's just as worn out with being sociable as I am and don't try to force any further conversation.

The silence between us remains just a little less than comfortable for a few days until he finds me dozing over my work bench in our shared lab in the early hours of the morning and helps me to the fold-out bed he installed for this very purpose. I wake to his muttering (one of his super-fine wires came loose in a micro-bead sound emitter and the magnifying light keeps flickering as he tries to reattach it) and help steady the errant lamp while he finishes the job. He smiles, satisfied, as the solder lands and everything is right again.

~xXx~

The shift from the still warm days of early fall to the rapidly encroaching winter hits District Three abruptly in early October. In the space of 48 hours we go from not needing to wear long sleeves during the day to a hard frost on the ground and ice-cold sleeting rain which mingles with the smog to dump a freezing curtain of misery across the entire length of the district.

Four days into the cold snap the transformer for a dozen residential buildings including my old home dies and despite clear signs of overuse (it probably needed replacing at least a decade ago) Mayor Gowan insists on doing a full investigation just in case there was some form of tampering. While he has his people puttering around making notes about fifteen hundred residents spend their nights (or their days, depending on which factory shift they're on) huddling together under whatever blankets they can get a hold of, their usual electric heaters useless.

Once it becomes clear Gowan is going to drag his heels, I bribe Toranas, one of the peacekeepers stationed at the Village checkpoint, to ignore my new houseguests and welcome Ezra, Laney, Baliss, Landon and little Zander to the spare bedrooms. Pella, my older sister decided she was fine on her own and didn't want to risk her place on the promotion roster by technically breaking the law, so we leave her shivering in our old apartment. I do leave her a new thermal blanket but, knowing her, she'll probably refuse to use it on stubborn principle.

My brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephews stay for a week enjoying the benefits of our wonderfully-equipped houses. Beetee cheerfully lets them visit him through the lab during the day and puts on a run of films to keep the kids occupied for hours at a time, giving their parents a much needed break. Baliss, who is only a few years from her first exams (a requirement to qualify for the advanced science program) spends hours of each day with us in the lab, generally helping out with our projects. She's a curious and keen learner, but probably not quite bright enough to pass the final exams (the ones sat a few months after a candidate's final reaping to qualify them for work as a district engineer or designer).

She's also only a few years from her first reaping, a fact I frequently try to forget whenever I spend time with them. It's suspiciously common for victors to have to mentor a relative in the arena but I hope the Capitol decides this family has spilled enough blood for their entertainment and that Balia's sacrifice will be sufficient to spare the others.

Seven-year-old Landon nearly swoons with delight when I let him play with my entire miniature remote-control hover-craft range and spends hours buzzing the devices up and down the stairs of Beetee's house, childish laughter echoing back down into the lab. Zander, who's nearly four, seems far more interested in staying curled up in the thermal blankets watching movies with his mother.

It's almost sad to see them go once the power is back in their home, especially for my parents who don't often get to spend time with their grandkids, living all the way out here in the Village with me and Malcon. They never say this though, as we all know it won't be long before they're back in their small, poorly maintained apartment just two floors away from the kids, suffering through the hot and cold snaps with the rest of the population.

Toranas gives me a cheerful wave as I deliver the last part of the bribe—two large tubs of homemade cakes for him and the other peacekeepers that turned a blind eye—and suggests that he'd be amenable to similar arrangements in the future. For the sake of the young kids, of course. The three other men who are currently stationed at the Village checkpoint chime in in agreement as they devour my mother's baking.

As far as peacekeepers go, they're all decent sorts. Toranas and Orion joined the force to waive large debts they'd racked up trying to live above their means, while Fergus and Demio were from the poor end of the Capitol and decided they would rather march around the districts than wait tables or haul garbage for a living. The four of them rotate months on and off with another quartet who are much less friendly and more rule-rigid, enforcing visiting curfews to the minute and frequently hassling my family even when they come by in normal hours.

Of course we didn't have the checkpoint or formal curfews until Gowan became mayor. There was always the rule about who could actually live out here with us in the Village, but no-one would ever have complained about a relative or friend staying a night or two here or there. Now all non-residents are required to be gone by 7pm, which makes having family over for dinner rather difficult. I'm just glad it was the friendly four on duty this month as Livina and Hadrian would probably have had me arrested if I tried to bribe them. I've often noticed that the peacekeepers who originally hail from Two are far more hidebound and rigid in their demeanour.

Officially they all come from the Capitol, of course. From a few overheard discussions between District Two victors, I've learned that many of their district's poor or orphaned kids enter the training programs to escape poverty. Once past their final reaping, they are eligible to move to the Capitol and join the official force, which comes with a Capitol citizenship once their 20 years of service is up. I've never had much trouble spotting which of them originated from the districts, though I've noticed other people often struggle to make the distinction. Then again, a lot of things that seem obvious to me are apparently difficult for others to notice. It's got me out of trouble a few times in my life and will probably get me out of more in the years to come.

~xXx~

Unlike previous years, I'm actually excited when the Victory Tour for the 58th Hunger Games reaches Three. I'm not permitted to meet Diya and Sarnia at the train station but I do get to greet them at the Justice Building and give them a brief tour of our main shopping area the morning before the Victory Rally.

Traditionally, showing around visiting celebrities is one of the mayor's duties, but Gowan had a recent (probably drunken) fall which broke his leg and he happily passes over the honor to Beetee, who in turn passes it to me when he conveniently ends up 'busy'. Our newest victor looks remarkably better than the last time I saw her; the dark shadows in and around her eyes have faded and her listless hair, while cut short, is now dark and thick and shiny. She doesn't pause to wince and clasp her arms every few minutes with pain, her body has gained enough weight to no longer look skeletal, and she seems bright and happy and talkative, completely untroubled by memories from her Games. I guess whatever disease she was suffering that prompted her to volunteer has been cured and she's now decided to enjoy life to its fullest.

They both try on a few outfits in our largest clothing store, watch on in appreciative amusement as the tech store shows off some of their new products, and join me for hot stewed apple dumplings at one of the restaurants, opened specially for the tour.

I get them back to the Justice Building before one, leaving plenty of time for their stylist and prep team to fuss over them before the Rally starts at two-thirty. Promenadus, the stylist who was shunted from Four to Five's girl just this year seems to be basking in the glory of his success. He hurries Sarnia away for a costume change—undoubtedly another of the heavily embroidered pieces that are his trademark—and gives me a brief chance to chat with Diya in private over a hot drink.

She's also in good spirits—she has her first ever victor, a girl who isn't suffering from any noticeable physical or mental deprivations (now that her illness is cured) and is moderately well liked but not so popular as to entice additional media coverage beyond the normal. Now that she no longer looks a step away from collapsing, young Sarnia's almost pretty, though not really attractive enough to catch the eye of rich sponsors looking for a 'lover'. Pretty much everything you could ask for as a Hunger Games mentor.

The Rally goes well despite the cold, damp air swirling down from the north, forcing the crowd to huddle together for warmth. Neither of the kids from Three had much hope and, as Sarnia's only kill was the boy from Nine, their families don't have to suffer watching their child's killer spouting off Capitol-dictated pleasantries. In fact Sarnia sounds honestly genuine when she thanks our district for its support and our deceased tributes for their sacrifice, something very few victors manage.

Mayor Gowan's overly-obsequious reply sounds noticeably fake beside it and I hide a smile as he winces his way across the stage with his walking crutch to present our newest victor with a commemorative plaque. Thankfully I'm seated well away from him at the formal dinner that night, between Diya and one of the senior engineers who I vaguely know and get along with. The three of us discuss the newest advancements in solar-power technology while poor Beetee and Sarnia are forced to listen to Gowan's repetitive and self-aggrandizing stories.

Eventually someone rolls out the old piano and starts playing, joined by an older merchant woman on her violin, and a good number of people stand and help clear part of the floor for those who choose to dance. Diya smiles fondly as a shy young man who I think is the son of one of the richest engineers in the district leads Sarnia out by the hand and starts twirling her around.

"You watch," she says as we sit back, sipping our spiced tea and enjoying the enthusiasm of the younger guests who eagerly join in the dancing. "She'll go from one to another and wear them all out and still want to dance some more. Making up for the last three years she spent…unwell."

I recall that Sarnia's illness was not publicly revealed, and I guess someone on the Games production staff has decided to keep it that way. They ran with a fairy-tale theme for her Games storyline based on a princess who is locked in a high tower, kept away from all the good things in life by her evil family. Apparently the fortress Sarnia built during the Games was supposed to be a physical representation of the terrible loneliness that inspired her to volunteer and in her victory she has emerged as a new girl ready to embrace the beautiful and civilized world that the Capitol offers.

Or something like that.

I suspect that the boy from Ten was their intended victor, but Sarnia's open happiness and genuine appreciation towards the Capitol since her unexpected victory appears to have satisfied President Snow. He likes his victors controllable, but even more he likes the ones who willingly obey him out of some misguided belief of duty or debt. I shudder, momentarily remembering his cold, emotionless voice instructing the addition of thousands of reaping entries for my sister's name, punishment for my transgressions against his authority.

Diya nudges me out of my unpleasant reverie with a sharp elbow. "You should get Beetee up there. I'm sure he'd like to give you a twirl," she says with a nod in his direction and a gesture towards the dozen people making use of the dance floor. I burst out laughing, earning strange looks from nearby and a dark glare from Mayor Gowan four seats away, whose story I apparently interrupted.

I've seen Beetee dance, or at least attempt to, twice. Enough to know that the last place he'd want to be in this room is on the dance floor. And I certainly wouldn't throw him under a bus like that.

"I'm serious," Diya says once I calm down, though I notice she's smiling too. "Come on Wiress I've seen how he looks at you. We all have."

I stare at her, uncomprehendingly. Then I realize she must be joking. No-one would ever think that Beetee and I were anything other than good friends. He's like a second big brother to me, filling the void that Ezra somewhat left when he moved out to start his own family. And I'm the curious and clever little sister Beetee never had. Essentially his only family in the world since he stopped speaking to his parents over two decades ago.

I explain this haltingly to Diya while she continues to grin aggravatingly. She shakes her head as I drop off into silence, and tells me, "I've known you, what, ten years, almost? And him nearly twice that. I can tell you now that he barely even notices other women, ever, at least in a romantic way. But you were always different. All through your Games I-we could see it, just ask Seeder or Jackie if you don't believe me. He usually makes an effort for the kids, but normally he doesn't actually care whether they live or die. _You_ mattered to him though."

I shake my head, wondering just how much wine she's had to think such obviously silly thoughts. I've spent most of the last decade sharing a lab with Beetee. I would have noticed if he seemed even the slightest bit romantically inclined towards me. Surely.

I glance over in his direction, peeking past Gowan's wildly gesturing hands. Beetee meets my eye for a second and looks away. In the dim light it's hard to tell, but it almost appears he is blushing.

I shake my head again. Trick of the light. Has to be.

Diya beside me is still smirking. "You two are hopeless," she says. "Maybe I'll have a word or two to him, see what he has to say for himself on the matter."

I try and fail to catch her arm as she stands, though she heads for the restrooms rather than towards Beetee and I decide she was just messing with me some more. I go back to finishing the last of my dessert as I watch the younger people enjoying themselves, Sarnia in the middle of the dancing circle, laughing loudly and joyously. I try to imagine myself like that, carefree and happy, not apparently weighed down by the blood on my hands from the years of tribute deaths. Maybe after she's watched her first tributes die horribly (I don't doubt for a second that the girl from Five will be brutalized in the opening minutes of the next Games by whichever Career tribute is closest) she will become more like the rest of us.

It's not until the party starts winding down that I look around for Beetee and see him and Diya talking quietly near the door. I hesitate not sure if it's a conversation I would want to interrupt. Then again they've been friends since she won her Games four years after Beetee. They could just be exchanging pleasantries. Talking about research. Discussing what it's like to mentor a victor.

Diya sees me watching and shoots me a pointed look over Beetee's shoulder. I decide to wait a little longer in my quiet corner, pretending to be absorbed with watching Sarnia's awkward (and slightly inebriated) attempts at flirting.

Later, once the noise and the cameras have wound down for the night we make our escape back to the Village turn-off on the night bus. It's a cold walk up the slightly sloped path, though less unpleasant these last few years after Beetee convinced someone in charge to pave it and set up street lights.

"I really should look into getting a car," Beetee mutters as we both pull our jackets tight against another gust of cold wind.

I nod as always when he says this, though neither of us ever seems to get around to it. Then again, with the number of permits and forms required to own one, it might be less effort for us to build our own.

Another swirl of icy air makes my teeth audibly chatter and Beetee, without asking, drops a comfortable arm around my back, sharing what little warmth he has. I relax against him—over the years we've become a little more physically comfortable with one-another. It's something he struggles with much more than I do as he was never close to his family and, to the best of my knowledge, has never had any lovers or other intimates.

I think again on Diya's comments earlier in the night and wonder if this could comfortable friendship really could be mistaken for being anything more. To my right I see Beetee shaking his head a few times, muttering softly under his breath as he sometimes does when he needs to confer with himself—an endearing habit I've never quite been sure he realizes that he does. I've never tried to pry on what he's asking or telling himself, and more often than not he'll finish one of these internal discussions and immediately follow up with an engaging and logical conversation with me.

"I love you," he blurts out suddenly. I turn to stare at him, and stop paying attention to where my feet are going. His arm around my back tightens as I fall and the momentum ends up carrying both of us to the ground.

He lands mostly on top of me and immediately tries to scramble away. I bite down on a yelp as he tries to yank free his other hand, which has become tangled in my curled hair. We end up sitting awkwardly on the cold asphalt, both nursing grazed knees and hands; even in the low light of the street light thirty yards away I can see that Beetee's normally ashen skin is flushed and his eyes dart around everywhere except at me. The thin silver frame of his glasses appears to be slightly bent.

"Are you ok?" he asks softly, glancing at me once, then away again.

I nod, then make an affirmative noise when I realize he's still not looking at me. Part of me is tempted to stand up and keep walking, pretend that the last minute never happened. Maybe deliberately misconstrue the words towards the more fraternal bent that I feel. But I can't un-hear that tone, and pretending otherwise will just make it awkward between us until it's addressed.

It takes me a minute to find my words. Not the right words, certainly not the best words, but the only ones that I can force out.

"I…love you too, but…not…I …like Ezra. Like my brother. You protect me. Look after me. Brother."

He nods slowly, though I see the disappointment flicker in his eyes.

"Yes, well, I never really cared much for my family, so I have nothing to compare it to."

He winces as he braces his grazed palm on the asphalt and pushes himself to his feet, looking away once more. Back to his shy, aloof, distant self, who doesn't interact with people on an emotional level unless forced.

People are less predictable, less controllable than the inanimate objects he prefers to spend time with. Most scientific experiments can be repeated with the same results, over and over until a hypothesis is proved or disproved. But people are different, and the same initial trigger often results in completely different and unpredictable responses. I've heard him make this complaint on more than one occasion—we often joke that no-one but us would believe that I'm the people-person of the pair of us.

The pair of us.

That's how we're seen by so many of the others around us. Especially by those outside of District Three who don't know how close I am to my family, the ones who only see us as a matched pair of minds to throw at their technological problems. So close that we often finish each-other's sentences without missing a beat. Like Diya, most of them probably assume that there's more between us than I've ever considered.

Like Beetee, I'm a scientist. I can't allow myself to discredit a hypothesis, however slim, without at least testing it once.

I stand slowly and step towards him, slowly. He retreats a step backwards, almost involuntarily, then swallows heavily and forces him to stand still. I reach out and touch his face with my non-grazed hand, running my fingers down his surprisingly smooth cheek as I've done with Glory once, and Lorcan a number of times in the past. He swallows again, but lets me touch him in a way I suspect no-one else has.

I lean into him, pressing my lips to his, waiting for that soaring feeling to sweep through my chest and down to my stomach. But it doesn't come.

I can see that he knows it as soon as I step back, away from the man who loves me in a way I can never reciprocate.

"I….I'm sorry-"

He stops my words with a trembling finger and forces a weak smile.

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

He sighs and lowers his arm, then reaches up to his own face to adjust his askew glasses. A gust of cold wind sweeps down the road and I find my teeth chattering once more.

"Come on," he says, turning to face the last three hundred yards of sloping road. "Let's get home before we both freeze."

It sounds forced, trying to cover his disappointment with a smile, though I notice he doesn't offer his supportive arm around my back as we start walking. It will probably be some time before _that_ becomes comfortable again.

We don't speak for the rest of the walk home, except to wish each other a stilted good night once we reach our respective houses. I struggle to sleep that night and end up down in the workshop at 3 am, fiddling with a robotic vacuum cleaner that should detect and clear up spills as they occur (though currently it seems to target my shoelaces and any tools or parts left on the floor over actual spills). Beetee stumbles in half an hour later, also looking like he hasn't slept, and we stare at each other for a few seconds before laughing softly and settling in to our respective work-benches in a more companionable silence.

This is who we are to each other, far more than anyone else's standard conventions of relationships. It may not be love, at least in the romantic sense, but it's our own special bond formed from a decade of shared spaces and thoughts, and I'm glad to see it's still intact.

When he says "Can you hand me the-", I'm already passing him the new packet of alloy solder. When I grumble "Why won't it-", he doesn't look up as he says, "Stick to cleaning up actual mess? Have you looked at the coding parameters for particulate size? If it won't take, try using a proper chip, not that cobbled-together mess from the junkyards."

I roll my eyes at him (he insists on either buying new, high-quality components or scratch-building himself, while I'm happy to let someone else do the fiddly parts for me as long as it mostly works) and wire it up to the computer to check the coding.

By the time the sun rises, we are almost back to normal. As the days and weeks pass, I catch the occasional wistful look in his eyes when he thinks I'm not looking, and the odd flinch when we accidentally make contact. But we are still mostly here, together, in the way that makes sense for us, and I am glad that our special bond has survived this test.


	4. Chapter 4

In late March there is an outbreak of violence down at the poor end of town after a dozen kids are caught inside the fence scrounging in the Junkyard one night. The penalty for any adult caught scrounging is death, but children usually get away with a few days in a cell or maybe a beating if they're past reaping age. As a result, most of the poorer families encourage their young to slip the fence. After all, what's a few cuts and bruises or hungry nights here or there when there are whole families to feed?

Mayor Gowan decides to display his authority this time and crack down hard on the perpetrators, hanging the five who were of reaping age and publicly flogging the other seven. Even the little five-year-old gets dealt his ten lashes, and his bloody, screaming punishment is caught on film by someone who manages to sneak the footage onto the display screens at all five schools in the district.

We don't know if it's outraged parents, angry relatives or even other children from that end of town, but someone retaliates three nights later, barricading the doors of the peacekeeper barracks at the south end of town with scrap metal, dousing the perimeter with some sort of fuel and setting it alight. The walls are primarily made of concrete though, and the peacekeepers inside are well trained enough to break through the weakest barricade to escape, losing only two of their number to the smoke. Another thirty are injured, a mix of smoke inhalation and burns. One of these is their group commander, a dark man named Ingor Owens who I'm certain is not Capitol born, whose whole right arm is now marred with a vicious burn-scar from where he broke down the burning door.

Ingor personally directs the "questioning" of a range of suspects, refusing all pain medication or treatment while he works. Eventually he and the other senior peacekeepers announce their findings: Four adults and two teenagers whom they declare guilty of murder, attempted murder, deliberate arson and flagrant treason against authority. Gowan holds a show-trial where the accused aren't allowed to speak in their own defence, and summarily hangs them beside the scavenging children. They also cut wages in the lower two sections of town—penalties for "the suspicion of aiding and abetting" all of the criminals.

I hear all of this second-hand from Fergus and Orion, two of the friendlier peacekeepers that swap in for their month-long rotation at the Victor's Village at the start of April. Fergus still has a shiny scar across his forehead and their two counterparts have a nasty hacking cough courtesy of breathing smoke. While all four of them have a little sympathy for the families doing it tough, they have no merciful feelings towards the arsonists, though Fergus squirms a little at some of the interrogation methods that were apparently used. By the third week of April, there's been a small spike in tesserae numbers, though most kids from that end of town are already maxed out.

I find an excuse to visit the official scrapyard workers, ostensibly looking for an obscure computer chip that's no longer made, and make my rounds of the parts-sellers in each of the local market-places. I manage to buy all sorts of odds-and-ends at whatever price is asked, noticing the crowds of hungry-looking kids hovering on the street corners, narrowed eyes watching every movement for an opportunity. Unfortunately I know that there's no point trying to actively provide any of them with food, clothes or even gifting them money as it will just be reported by one of the twenty-odd peacekeepers making their rounds. The poor won't get to keep it and I'll be put under stricter sanctions, which helps no-one.

Two peacekeepers approach me after a half-hour to "suggest" I move on to a better part of town, one of them sporting a fresh-looking bruise on his ungloved hand. The largest market square in the south end of the district has been filled with eight new stocks, all of them currently occupied. There's also a whipping post which has a squirming boy tied to it, though he doesn't appear to have been beaten.

I know the hangings all took place in the main square at the north end of town, but I guess someone decided they wanted to keep a few reminders close to home. It's not like most of the people down here have any reason to visit the proper shops, restaurants or even the Justice Building. After the most recent wage cuts I doubt any of them could even afford the bus ticket.

I take the bus back to my old home and manage a brief visit with Laney—Ezra is working and the kids are still in school—and arrange for them to sneak some extra food down to the south side. She agrees readily, appalled at the treatment of children a similar age to her own. She promises dutifully that they'll all be careful not to be seen, as it's a melting pot down there right now and another spark may cause serious ignition.

I don't hear anything about them being arrested, so I can only assume that they manage just fine. By the time the reaping rolls around in May, the slums of Three have settled to a mild simmer and I'm not remotely surprised when both of our tributes are called from the poorer end of the district.

~xXx~

Gloria Goldacre, our small, chirpy escort calls the girl first as always. Antimony Newen is small and scrawny, as expected, around fourteen or fifteen, her straight black hair cut short to her shoulders, her fringe a series of rough-cut bangs sticking out in all directions. Her arms and legs are scabbed from a myriad of cuts and grazes and she picks at a piece of loose skin as she stares flatly at the dutifully applauding crowd. The surname is most common to the scavengers and scrapyard-pickers, and I wouldn't be surprised if she was related somehow to the kids who were caught six weeks before. The boy, Nikon Sata looks a slightly better chance, eighteen and as tall as Beetee. Underfed, of course, but not entirely defeated. Neither of the kids shed tears as Gowan reads the treaty. Nikon scowls at the crowd and stares off into the distance, taking in the surrounding gray buildings, much like I did at my own reaping. Antimony stares at her feet, glancing up once or twice, eyes darting, as though looking for a chance to escape, though she doesn't make any moves to do so. She tenses briefly as the peacekeepers lead her into the Justice Building, followed soon after by a crowd of relatives.

I get a chance to say a brief farewell to my own family before taking the waiting car to the trains. Beetee, his nose already buried in a pile of scribbled notes and drawings, settles into his compartment to work a little while longer, leaving me to greet our newest tributes alone.

Both of them quickly change into soft, comfortable clothes and fall upon the provided lunch as if starving. Gloria tries to intersperse a few tentative reminders about table manners, which both kids ignore completely, Antimony going as far as to "drop" half a plate of bolognaise sauce in our Escort's lap. Gloria shrieks about her ruined dress and hurries to change clothes while Antimony smirks and Nikon outright laughs. I recall my own turn of dumping food in my Capitol Escort's lap to annoy them, and smile too.

"Not smart," I tell Antimony as they settle down to dessert. "Funny, but not smart."

The girl shrugs, her shoulder-blades sharply outlined through the thin silk shirt.

"I don't care. I'm as good as dead anyway. Might as well have a laugh on the way out. Take a few of them Capitol folk down to size. So you're here, where's the other one? "

"Beetee is-" I hesitate, trying to think of how to word it so it doesn't sound like he cares more about his research than his tributes. Even though it's often true. Before I can finish, the door rattles open.

"I'm here," Beetee says, readjusting his glasses before he takes a seat at the empty place and starts on the plate of food I set aside for him.

"Where's Gloria?" he asks after a few mouthfuls.

"Gone to change," I tell him. "Accidental spill…"

"Accident, huh," he says, glancing at our tributes who are both still smirking.

He sighs and sets down his fork, rubbing his head. "If you want to annoy someone, save it for the other tributes. The Gamemakers, the assistants in the Training Center, if you really must. Don't bother the Escort or the stylists. They are doing their best to help you and if you bother them, they'll stop helping. Don't annoy Caesar Flickerman either," he adds as an afterthought. "He does an excellent job helping scared tributes to not sound like idiots."

Antimony rolls her eyes and goes back to eating. Nikon snorts and says, "Like we care about any of them. I'd rather get them, any of them, however I can. Payback."

"Who is 'them' exactly?" Beetee asks mildly.

"Capitol people. Rich people. Any of that lot," Nikon replies. "All of them are bad. They hung my uncle and he didn't even do anything wrong. My mom and aunt lost their jobs and my cousin, she'd got into the advanced classes these last two years but she had to drop out 'cause they needed her to work just to get enough to eat. And we all took tesserae. Even Mika, and he's only just turned twelve. Now he has four more entries every year. I want someone to pay for all that, and I'll go for anyone I can get."

Beetee rubs his head again, and turns to Antimony.

"And you? What's your problem?"

She shrugs and talks around another huge mouthful of chocolate custard.

"We never had a chance, our lot. They beat my cousin's kid bloody and hung his best friend just for scrounging some scraps. Could'a been any of us what got caught."

She throws a quick glare at Nikon. "Don't know what you're complaining about really. At least your folks had a job. My Mom's been too sick to work since I was nine and my Dad lost his good hand when he was twenty and his other got crushed seven years back. And none of them fancy factories even in the packaging district would give us kids a job. Anyway, it's like he said. Make any of them pay, cause they're all bad. It's nothing like what we suffered but if I can make them look or feel stupid, make them lose something they care about, then at least I get that much."

She sets down the empty bowl and leans back in her seat, arms crossed, a stubborn set to her jaw. There's something familiar about it, both the look and the attitude that reminds me of a tribute just a few years past.

"I don't suppose you were…were…related to…Hertzy…"

For the first time, Antimony's face softens a little.

"Hertzy Howan? Yeah, she was a cousin of some sort. We're all cousins down there though. Most of the slums is named Newen, Howan or Tran and most of us stop counting the cousin degrees after the first. I bet she got a few licks in against your Capitol folk too before she went."

Beetee smacks the table loud enough to make us all jump.

"Enough. If you won't be sensible for your own sakes, at least remember that anything you say or do, especially on camera, will potentially come back to your families."

He stares down both of them until they look away in turn. Nikon scowls and looks away sullenly. Antimony scowls too and mutters something about it not being able to get any worse.

Beetee looks steadily at her and says in a flat, emotionless voice, "You might be surprised."

I see Antimony meet his look and shiver, and I realize she got a glimpse of the monster lurking behind Beetee's soft, dark eyes. He generally keeps a good control on his inner victor, and maintains a good amiable public face. Most people haven't seen his darker side, not up close, and the ones that remember watching him win his Games have probably forgotten the worst of him. I still remember him nearly choking our old escort to death because the Capitol man had slapped me. Now there was someone who I wouldn't have minded setting this pair of tributes on. I can't help but smile imagining them harassing Carmenius.

By the time I get back to the present, both of our tributes have gone to their compartments to rest for a few hours. Beetee is picking at a pastry and watching me with a small smile. I know what that look means now and I push away the tinge of guilt that I can't reciprocate it and nod back at him. He shakes his head once he realizes I'm with him again and says, "You know, if we could just direct their attitude towards their fellow tributes they both might actually have a chance."

Personally I doubt it—neither of them have the first bit of fighting training and, while I suppose climbing fences and hauling shipments is more exercise than most of our tributes get, I don't see it getting either of them all that far in the wilds of the arena. Especially if they insist on angering or insulting their Capitol support team along the way. One bad word from Gloria or whoever our assigned stylists are this year to the media, and there will be zero chance of sponsorship outside our industry backers. Even they won't be all that interested in helping a pair of average District Three gutter rats, who won't be of use to them in the future.

~xXx~

We discover the next morning that Lucia, our ever-present male-tribute stylist has been traded with District Twelve this year for their young 'rising star', Caratacus Cross. He and Beetee quickly get into an argument about tribute presentation, with Caratacus insisting on full artistic licence for not only his own tribute, but our girl and our overall presentation strategy for both their training and interviews. He claims that as it's the female tribute's stylist's first year in the limelight, while he is in his third, all such choices should be left up to him. Especially since whatever interview strategies Beetee and I have used the last few years haven't made an impact, in his opinion.

New stylists generally get lumped with Three, Six, or Twelve (statistically the worst districts in terms of tribute placings over the history of the Games) so it's not unexpected to have a new face styling our female tribute. What is surprising is that the face isn't new at all, just the title.

"Hey," Lorcan says cheerfully as he helps himself to coffee before taking the seat beside me in the kitchen of our Remake Center apartment. "I would have told you, honest, but I only got confirmation a week ago when the Gamemakers blew up at poor Tigris. Apparently she was planning on giving her tributes some cosmetic…ah…enhancements, despite the Gamemakers saying no. They've put her on warning and did a last-minute re-shuffle for this year. They asked Dido to step in, and she said no of course, but suggested that I would do fine instead. I guess they didn't feel like arguing, so here I am."

He glances across the table, where an oblivious Beetee and Caratacus are still arguing.

"I've told my prep team to ignore his waffle and do as I've told them. Anything useful to know about the tribute? I didn't have much time so I thought I'd stick with something simple. Metallic silver dress with two hundred irregularly shaped mirror-pieces sewn on. Reflecting the glare of technology back at the Capitol. I've even got a pretty mirrored hair-piece that should stay in with enough pins and spray, that'll make her the envy of every girl back home. I'm sure she'll love it."

"Good luck," I reply, and explain haltingly and quietly about Antimony's rough upbringing and harsh attitude. Not that it should matter if the apartment is bugged as I doubt we'd be heard over Caratacus' increasingly loud whining.

"I'll talk to her," Lorcan assures me cheerfully. "And if that doesn't work, I'll set Portia onto her. We have her again as the District Three runner. No-one says no to my little girl for long."

I wince and hope it doesn't come to that—I doubt anyone from the slums of Three would hold back on nastiness just because it was aimed at an eleven-year-old girl, especially one as persistent as Portia. But if Lorcan can talk some sense into my strong-willed tribute, I'll take it.

Lorcan rises to go oversee the final dress alterations and I decide to head down to the Sponsorship Hall on the off-chance there's anyone remotely interested in our tributes. We leave Beetee and Caratacus still arguing back and forth, and I hope for Nikon's sake that the boy's costume is sufficiently complete that the lost time won't matter. I consider briefly interrupting to ensure that Caratacus doesn't try to overrule any of Lorcan's decisions, but I figure neither Lorcan nor Beetee will allow that to happen anyway, and decide to make a more productive use of my time.

I take the car across town to the Training Centre and pass a few words with Diya and Sarnia at their mostly empty sponsorship booth. Their few sponsors seem more interested in meeting last year's victor than contributing anything to Five's current tributes, though it's more than we have hanging around the District Three table. By half-one even Sarnia's small fan-club have all vanished and the three of us join Seeder, Jackie and a glowing Cecelia for a late lunch.

After some debate, it was decided that Cecelia's wedding wouldn't be an official Games event with victors in attendance. The spring wedding was televised though, and I remember seeing it around the same time they were hanging our suspected arsonists. Cecelia can't stop gushing about her beautiful dress, her wonderful cake, how lovely it was for all of her friends and family, how her father nearly stumbled walking her down the aisle, how surprisingly well her husband dances…

We let her ramble on, showing appropriate enthusiasm at the large collection of photos she has on her little camera. Sarnia starts chipping in with stories of her own (relatively new) boyfriend, which has Diya rolling her eyes and muttering about bribing peacekeepers to ignore the young man's frequent sleepovers in the Victors' Village.

Our easy afternoon of conversation lingers until Seeder reminds us all that we have our mentors' meeting at four. By the time we get back we're ten minutes late and hurry in, though we're not the last to arrive. Jackie, Seeder and I join Beetee and Tolby in the far corner, while Diya plants Sarnia in a chair near the front. Cecelia and old Wilf (more commonly called Woof these days after a particularly bad bender a few years back ended with him passing out cuddled up to some stray dogs in a gutter) sits with them.

Our Head Gamemaker, a dour woman (by Capitol standards) named Desmara Colwyn, taps her watch impatiently as the last few mentors hurry in. This is her third year in charge, yet she doesn't seem to have got used to the tendencies of victors. She gives her brief welcoming spiel, congratulating Sarnia on joining us and reminding us to revise our helpful guidebooks to mentoring to re-familiarize ourselves with the rules and expectations. These haven't changed in the last few years so I haven't even bothered opening my copy, trusting my excellent memory to hold up if needed. There's a blunt reminder that tributes will not be permitted to make anything resembling a political statement, either in their interviews or during the Games and that we should actively remind them that they are here to pay the districts' blood price for the long-ago rebellion, and therefore they have a duty to uphold to maintain the spirit of the Hunger Games and the clemency it grants.

I restrain myself from responding, though I hear a few snorts and low mutters around the room at this. I can only imagine what Antimony and Nikon would say if I told them they had to mind their manners because _they_ owed it to the Capitol. Sharing a quick glance with Beetee, I realize we are going to most likely have to steer our tributes away from saying anything at the interviews. I doubt either of them are getting far once the Games begin, so it shouldn't be an ongoing issue, and if one or both of them actually make it past the opening days they'll likely be too busy hiding alone or fighting for their lives to worry about making any sort of statement against the Capitol.

We're released soon after to go oversee the final touches of the parade preparations and as we take the stairs down to the waiting chariots Beetee murmurs, "I did argue him down in the end, of course, but we may still have to deal with some tantrums before the interviews. Any luck with sponsors?"

I shake my head and he shrugs, unsurprised. Our reliable sponsors come from our industry work, and they have better things to do with their time than hang around at Games events. Lorcan and Antimony are already waiting at the chariot alongside Juliette, Phoebe and a pretty young woman with unnaturally long eye-lashes and little gold stars tattooed at her temples. Vesuvia, a new 'friend' of Lorcan's apparently, who he recommended to the prep team. I raise an eyebrow when he mentions this and young Portia, trailing behind her father as always, stifles a giggle.

Antimony watches all this with a disgusted look, wringing her fingers impatiently together. She glares at me when I ask her how she is doing.

"My stupid stylist said I can't touch the dress or I'll get marks on the bits of broken mirror. And I hate this stupid thing in my hair. It hurts and the pins are itchy. I just want to pull it out. And look at my face!"

She gestures to the subtle silver highlights around her eyes and the small, irregularly-shaped reflective pieces that have been stuck to her cheekbones, matching the design of her dress. I think it's one of the best designs I've seen for our tributes yet, though I doubt we'll get enough attention to give Lorcan a chance to explain his 'reflecting the glare of technology' theme on camera.

Beetee rolls his eyes at her complaining and leans in to softly whisper, "Look around, tell me what you see?"

I glance around with her at the nearby tributes already waiting, and at the new arrivals hurrying in with their teams from the lifts. The boy from Two has his hair gelled into spikes which have been sprayed a bloody red, and is holding an over-sized hammer that wouldn't look out of place in a children's cartoon. Behind him, the boy from One has been forced into tight silky pants with a comically large bulge at the front which is ringed in gold-encased sapphires. His district partner is technically clothed, though her blue and gold dress leaves very little to the imagination. Behind us the District Five tributes are also short on clothing, with thin gold lightning-bolt shaped pieces of cloth covering their girl's private areas and little more. The boy's loincloth has been cleverly folded into the shape of a light-bulb, leaving his scrawny chest bare except for the painted-on rays of light. Behind him the girl from Six appears to have an oversized toy train engine stuck to the top of her head and is already drooping from the weight.

A clatter directs our attention to the lifts, where the girl from Four stumbles in her heels. She manages to stand on the hem of her sweeping pearlescent cloak a second time in her brief walk over to the chariots and her chest is bare except for two carefully-placed sea shells. She is followed by the boy from Seven, whose brown body-suit and leafy-green headpiece is topped with a stuffed bird.

"All right," Antimony concedes with a scowl. "I guess I don't look quite as dumb as some of them. Can't I get rid of this comb thing though? It itches."

"As soon as we get to our rooms after the parade, you may rip it out and throw it away. Until then it stays in," Beetee tells her firmly.

"You're not my mentor," she tries, turning to me with a pleading expression. I fold my arms and stare back at her until she scowls, but stops complaining.

Caratacus and Nikon arrive with the other prep team not long after in a surprisingly modest silvery body-suit that looks like it's stitched together from a hundred variably-sized panels, like a quilt of metal. I'm about to praise it when Caratacus steps forward to clip the large black box to the hem of the pants and, with a soft whirr, some of the panels start rolling back to reveal the skin underneath, framed only with the thin outlines of each segment.

"It's all randomized, but by the time he reaches the end of the parade, he will be wearing just the skeleton of this outfit, and the audience will get to see it vanish slowly over time. Brilliant, isn't it?"

The audience almost certainly won't notice. I'd almost be approving of the actual use of technology if it wasn't going to leave our male tribute mostly naked by the time the chariots reach the Training Center. Nikon certainly isn't impressed and Antimony stops her muttering and fidgeting, apparently realizing her good fortune. She looks around again at the press of tributes, then turns to me with a slightly calculating look.

"So, any chance some of these others might want to team up? I'm used to running with friends when I go out…you know…It's handy to have a lookout."

I take a moment to size her up. She's a few months shy of fifteen, five-two in flat feet, nearly five-three if she stops slouching, and as skinny as I am. She's not pretty; dark, angular eyes in a flat face with a short, broad nose and slightly too-large ears that point out through her sleek black hair. Her full lips are covered in a delicate layer of make-up which hides the sores in the corners of her mouth, and her teeth are more gray than white, one of them noticeably chipped. She's a few shades darker-skinned than I am, which will do her well if there's much sun in the arena, and she's undoubtedly stronger and faster than I was. Her years of illegal scavenging will have taught her stealth and caution and, hopefully, some survival instincts.

I'd just about written her off on the train journey when she announced that she wouldn't get far, but if she has decided to actually play the game then she might have a sliver of a chance. I remember Beetee directly advising me to avoid allies because of my trap-based survival plan, but looking back now I'm not sure whether having one or two close allies, at least for the early game, would be a problem even if she does go that route. As long as she would be willing to turn on them when the time came. I doubt I would have been able to, but a girl from the slums of Three…I wouldn't be surprised.

"I'll ask around," I tell her. "You…impress them. Look tough."

She gives me a scornful look, and I adjust my words. "Not scared. Competent. No-one wants…"

"No one wants to babysit someone who isn't any help to them," Beetee finishes for me.

Nikon snorts at the conversation. "I'm not going to help you, in case you're wondering," he says with a sneer.

Antimony shrugs. "I don't need you dragging me down anyway."

They both turn away from one another and glare in opposite directions until the time arrives to mount their chariots. Gloria, who was busy chatting to some of the other Escorts, bustles over to remind them to smile and wave if they want the nice sponsors to like them. Lorcan gently guides her away to the waiting cars when both of our tributes glare in response and I overhear her saying, "-just don't understand what their problem is. Some of these district children can be so rude, honestly."

I sigh and share a rueful glance with Beetee. Gloria is better than she was when she first started as our Escort, but her understanding of district life and upbringing is still frequently lacking. Beetee and I both grew up in solidly middle-class families and, as far as I know, Cupros was a shop-owner's son from the rich end of town. None of us were ever poor enough to go hungry or lack for basic necessities. The poor kids from Three like Antimony and Nikon have probably gone without so many things the Capitol takes for granted that there's simply no way the two sides could understand one-another. Hertzy, our female tribute two years ago was from the rough end of town too, and managed to ruffle Gloria's feathers several times, I recall. With the harsh crack-down in the weeks leading up to the Games, it's hardly surprising that our tributes are even less receptive to the pervasive Capitol attitudes than usual.

I shake my head again as the doors pull open and the chariot carrying our two still-scowling tributes rolls into place. If the pair of them can't get along with one another, I can't imagine it'll be any easier finding them allies in the days to come.


	5. Chapter 5

I don't get to pass more than a few words with Antimony at breakfast the next morning as I am summoned to the Heavensbee's workshop to sit in on a meeting about expanding their product line. Old Nicharkus Heavensbee's ailing heart finally gave out four years ago, leaving Plutarch as the sole heir to a fairly expansive business empire. The young and occasionally obnoxious man decided to sell off some of the workshops he had less personal interest in, but he did keep the hovercraft contracts amongst his active projects. I get memos or schematics from him sent to me three or four times a year asking for help or advice, which is frequently ignored if it disagrees with his own assessment. Still, he's always made it clear that he's happy to sponsor our tributes if the time comes, and I actually quite like several of his engineers (and their workshop toys), so I play nice. He's also the last bit of contact I have to my original group of Capitol friends.

Despite being personally involved in the group of would-be Capitol rebels that were caught out nine years back, he managed to grease his way out of trouble without even losing a single government contract from his company. In the years since I haven't heard him mention any of our other mutual friends or anything about what happened to the leaders of that group, though the one time I tried to subtly ask he looked suspiciously smug as he rebuffed me. My best guess is that the leaders were either killed, presumably without being successfully questioned, or had had an escape plan in place and are now hiding in the out-districts.

None of them ever tried to contact me or, as far as I know, Beetee. I'm not sure I would have helped them if they did, as their great plan involved replacing the current corrupt, overbearing Capitol government with a new people rather than new laws. Sometimes I imagine the arrogant Andronicus Dexter and his pompous sidekicks shivering in the wilderness eating berries and wild animals to get by. More likely they found, or built some sort of community, though I expect they would have suffered terribly at the inconvenience of no longer having everything they wanted at their fingertips. I'd occasionally thought that, if they were smart, they might try for the ruins of District Thirteen.

According to the Capitol it's still radioactive and we see 'scientists' in full protective gear taking televised readings and shaking their heads dramatically every five years or so from the remains of their old town square. Usually there's a chirpy reporter in her own body-suit and face shield who stands in front of the Justice Building and explains again how devastating the nuclear weapons were and how the place is still tainted. Yet every time it appears to be the same scientists, the same meters measuring at the exact same locations and the same results. The reporter does change, but their words and the background image don't.

Those same scientists also frequently remind the residents of Three that the desert surrounding our district is similarly tainted and that we should never wander away from our narrow strip of 'clean' land. But somehow the river that flows alongside our district and provides our water isn't harmful, even though it runs alongside the apparently smoldering ruins of Old Vegas some way upstream. I built a radiation monitor a few years back out of curiosity and wandered past the far edges of the district cemetery, across the train tracks leading away to the Capitol and over to the dead plains without getting a single chirp. It made me wonder about some of the Capitol's official information.

District Three technically isn't fenced because the population knows it is death to try and cross the highly radioactive desert. The simple chain-mesh barricades that block direct access to the river, and surround the gigantic Scrapyard at the southern point of the district are easily bypassed by anyone with a pair of wire-cutters or some basic climbing skills and the ability to dodge the occasional peacekeeper patrols. If people knew that it was safe to walk on the scorched earth, as long as you had access to some supplies it wouldn't be that hard to escape.

The main problem would be where to go, as the closest point of civilization is District Two, who are essentially all Capitol loyalists and would turn in anyone passing through their lands without hesitation. Even if you could sneak by them, the stories of out-district raiders tend to involve wandering bands of thieves struggling to get by, unable to settle in one place for long for fear of being caught and punished for whatever crimes made them flee.

It made me wonder about District Thirteen as a possible place of refuge. After all, if the Capitol is lying about the radiation around Three, they might just be lying about Thirteen. According to what little scraps of records I've been able to find, Thirteen had several underground research facilities which might just have survived the blast enough to take shelter in. And, as long as you dodged the occasional inspections (assuming they really do go take measurements from time to time), it would probably be quite deserted. Either that or the Capitol has a secret base out there where they store their nastiest weapons and worst prisoners. All I know is that if I am ever forced to flee Three, it's where I'll probably try to head.

I doze my way through the rest of Plutarch's meeting and make it back to the Training Center in the early afternoon, grabbing some lunch at the bar and settling down to watch some of the footage from the gymnasium. I see Nikon first, sparring with a knife. As I watch he lunges forward with an aggressive swipe at the trainer, who easily sways to the right and taps his own fake blade into Nikon's exposed side. They step back and go over the motion slowly, our boy scowling but nodding. There are three other tributes going through similar motions with other knife trainers nearby. All of them look more competent than Nikon, even the young girl from Eight.

The view switches to a camera on the far side of the room where the three Career girls take turns racing up a climbing wall. They don't include that station if there aren't things to climb in the arena so I figure we can rule out desert or grasslands terrain. The camera perspective continues to cycle, showing us the boy from Eleven (clumsily but enthusiastically wielding an axe), the girls from Five and Eleven (giggling together as they practice tying knots and watch someone off to the left of screen), the boy from Six (using a slingshot with reasonable results and laughing at his district partner who joins him and demonstrates much less skill with the weapon), the girl from Eight again (now waving a sword with less confidence than she had wielding the knife). Finally I catch a glimpse of Antimony trying her luck with a throwing spear. She looks to have good aim, but isn't strong enough to launch the spear any sort of practical distance. She does better when she swaps to throwing knives. After a brief demonstration from the trainer I see her first attempt at least hit the edge of the target. The boy from Six wanders into the frame and stands beside her, his own first throw missing the edge of the frame by a few inches. She turns to say something to him but the view cuts away before I have a chance to try and read her lips.

"Good luck if you want to ally with Six," says a voice behind me. I turn to find Jackie Ledger, one of District Ten's regular mentors, who sits beside me and calls for a beer. "I've been through that circus a few times now. Dom is impossible; he'll not last until interview night to start shooting up and once he's high he won't come down until they pack him on the train home. You're better off going to Kaylee and getting in early before she gets started. She at least has some self-control. Usually holds off until her tribute is dead. If she knows there's a point in looking out for the boy, she'll usually wait and help with him too. 'Course, she'll rarely bring any sponsors and I wouldn't trust her to watch the desk while you sleep. Cost me back in the Fiftieth, that did."

I shudder and she looks down as she realizes what she said. "Oh, well, sorry. Anyway, I've been watching for a bit, saw your girl talking to that boy earlier this morning too. My young gal has decided she don't need no help from anyone so it won't be my problem this year."

She drains the glass that's set in front of her and waves for another and some food to go with it. We both watch in silence as the boy from One flattens the sword trainer, followed by his allies from Four who demonstrate their lack of ability with a bow. Jackie winces as her girl Neleah gives the unarmed combat trainer a 'come on' gesture, then promptly gets caught in a headlock she's unable to escape. "Hope they don't release that to the public," Jackie says as she polishes off her second beer and sandwich.

I shrug—they rarely ever show training footage on the public broadcast, though it's not uncommon to see glimpses of the tributes at their lunch break if they do something interesting. Once she's finished eating Jackie murmurs a brief farewell and wanders off. I debate going back to my rooms and reading for a bit, or maybe going over the printed notes Plutarch provided for his important meeting just to check that there's nothing I was supposed to have paid attention to. In the end I just curl up in one of the booth tables, continuing to watch the small glimpses of tribute training, and listening in on the conversations between some of the career victors nearby. Terentius and Rhea are mentoring this year for Two, and are comparing notes on their own glimpses of the tribute training. They are joined by Gabriela, the female mentor for Four and, later by Felix from One, whose hair and clothing are rumpled. All four seem happy enough with their tributes, though Felix grumbles that his boy is all brawn and no brains. Which, he jokes loudly a few minutes later, is better than having neither, like most districts do.

I finally leave when I see the tributes beginning to file out of the room and manage to catch Antimony at the door of our apartment. She's happy enough to sit in the lounge nibbling on candied nuts and a large fruit platter as she tells me about her day. I haltingly mention my observations about arena terrain and what other hints she might get from the plants, animals and insects stations, and she frowns suddenly.

"I didn't see an edible plants stop. There was animals and insects, I did both of them for a bit. Not that I don't know how to catch and cook rats already. But I don't remember seeing plants."

I shake my head—it's unlikely that amongst whatever trees, bushes, grasses or flowers they throw the tributes amongst this year, there would be nothing edible. She promises to go back and look tomorrow, and to also see what other hints she can get from the survival stations. I compliment her knife-throwing and suggest that she can practice that in her room tonight and not show it off in front of the other tributes again. She informs me that she might just look to ally with the boy from Six, though she is adamant that she doesn't want to work with his district partner. I promise to speak with Kaylee or Dominic at some point tomorrow, despite Jackie's warning. If nothing else, I'll at least get their signatures on any formal alliance paperwork on the off-chance someone does sponsor their tributes. If a tribute dies with a registered ally still alive the money can be transferred, and their Escort should be sober enough to do that even if the mentors aren't. Antimony remains animated all through dinner; Nikon is sulky and retreats to his room as soon as he can, despite Beetee's half-hearted attempts to discuss strategy.

I sit up for a little while with him in the lounge room, watching as the early odds are displayed on the screen, based only on the tributes initial appearances at the parade and a few leaked rumors about their first day of training, most of which sound dubious at best. The careers are, as always, the favourites, though the boys from Nine and Eleven, and the pretty young girl from Eight appear to have a few supporters too.

Beetee spent the day out working on the delicate circuitry for some fancy new electronic surgical tool and is far more interested in poring over his notes than in discussing the Games. He seems to have already written off Nikon (and Antimony, though he doesn't say so directly), and probably won't put much further effort into helping them prepare. I remind him carefully that he will need to prevent Nikon from running his mouth during the interviews, earning a groan and a heavy sigh.

I jot down my observations of the tributes and the probable arena, as well as any interesting comments that Antimony made, for possible future reference, and head for bed, losing myself in the newest mystery thriller that Gloria brought over for me. If there's one thing I can agree with our chirpy, overly-excitable Escort on, it's our shared fiction reading preferences. Of course I also enjoy engineering textbooks and she spends hours reading gossip rags and obituaries; we've long ago agreed to disagree on the superior non-fiction material.

~xXx~

I spend several hours of the next morning trying and failing to chase down either Kaylee or Dom, the victors from District Six, to formalize our alliance paperwork. Frustrated, I call up Gloria, who is more than happy to have something useful to do, and go settle myself in the back booth at the bar for lunch with some schematics that Luda Masterson sent over this morning. I catch enough gymnasium glimpses of Antimony and Axel, the male tribute from Six, talking to assume they are both happy to confirm their alliance. Around two, Vivianus Massey, the District Six escort leads in Dominic by the arm and drops him at my table.

"If you can keep an eye on him for the next half-hour or so, I'll bring the other one too. Honestly."

He shakes his head in disgust and stalks back out, wiping his hands on a cloth square which he then tosses in the trash. He's the fourth different escort Six has had since I started mentoring; most of them decide that baby-sitting a pair of drug addicts isn't a productive career path, and leave. The last man was lucky enough to grab a transfer three years back.

Dominic stares vacantly at the flickering screen and mumbles softly under his breath. I don't bother trying to ask him anything directly— my inability to finish half the sentences I start means there's zero chance of a productive conversation. I finish my annotations for Luda and say a brief hello to Haymitch, Chaff and Blight; the men from Seven and Twelve piously held off any serious drinking until they completed their formal pre-Games mentor interview slots and Chaff doesn't tend to drink as much without their company. Mine and Beetee's interviews are scheduled for a few hours' time (they decided to run in reverse district order the last few years) and I'd hoped to have the question of alliances settled before then. It gives me something to talk about besides our tributes' obvious shortcomings.

Belatedly, I realize that that's where Vivianus must have grabbed Dom from, and where he's waiting to collect Kaylee before she can sneak off to the back-alley sellers. Sure enough, they arrive as scheduled, and Kaylee appears to be as coherent as she ever is. Dom obviously found enough time between the end of his appearance and Vivianus cornering him to take a hit of something as he is now drooling and rocking back and forth in his seat, crooning a song about the colors of the rainbow. Or maybe he went on stage like this. I wouldn't put it past him.

"Vivi says you want to be…hmm…allies?" Kaylee asks softly when the District Six escort returns with her, peering into my face with her over-large eyes. She can't be more than fifty, but the drooping lines around her eyes and mouth, unhealthily yellowed skin and her gray-shot brown hair make her look ancient already.

Vivianus clears his throat and waves over their runner, a gangly boy in his mid-teens who doesn't seem particularly thrilled with how his opportunity to be up-close with the victors has turned out. He gives me a bit of a smile though as he hands over several paper forms filled with Gloria's neat handwriting.

"Axel is agreeable, though he insists on bringing in Kerstin too. For what it's worth, she seems reasonably bright, if shy and not particularly physically capable. He's also specified that he's not interested in working with your boy."

I snort. "Neither is Antimony."

I know she didn't care for the girl from Six either, but with a trio instead of a pair there's better odds that at least two of them make it away from the Cornucopia. Also, larger groups of allies tend to get more attention, and therefore sponsors, and we're going to need whatever we can get. Plus, with Kerstin formally in, it means Kaylee is formally in too, a much better prospect for getting something useful done than Dom alone.

Vivianus nods and places the forms in front of both of his victors. Kaylee reads through them slowly, using her finger to keep her place, then nods and scrawls her name at the bottom of the page. Dom apparently needs help just holding the pen and eventually manages to scratch a few jittery scribbles in approximately the right place.

"I'll file these now and have the Gamemakers call Gloria when it is all formalized. Lovely to have you on board."

He whisks the last sheet away from Dom's saliva-spattered sleeve and marches off importantly, leaving me with his victors and an uncomfortable silence.

"Axel can make things," Kaylee says suddenly. "He told me so. Useful things out of rubbish."

Well, that's something I guess. At sixteen and nearly five-ten, he also has a small chance at not being crushed in a physical contest. Kerstin Pullet, their female tribute is sixteen too, and also has Antimony beat on size.

"Antimony is the same," I tell her, though I don't know this for a fact. It seems a reasonable guess for a scrounger. Kaylee nods. "Kerstin is book smart, but not world smart. She knows things, but not things that matter."

Really there's only one thing that matters in the arena: staying alive. I'd be happy to see any of the three manage that, if only to give Six a chance at having a victor who wasn't a drug-addled addict. From the stories I've heard about their first victor, who apparently died from an overdose (officially, a heart attack), drug dependence is a common problem in their district. As well as their own factories where they manufacture vehicles of all sorts (the small internal parts are often made in Three and shipped over for final construction), they provide the operation and maintenance crews for all of the trains, tracks, roads, trucks and stations throughout Panem, working twelve or more hour shifts routinely. Apparently there's a steady trade for caffeine pills or stronger, anything to keep them alert through their long hours of work.

I let Kaylee read over my notebook, with my comments on the tributes and the arena hints I've gathered while I order some chocolate-coated fruits and listen to the three steadily drinking victors at the bar banter back and forth. All three of the outer district men generally try to stay sober during the actual Games, at least as long as their tributes are alive, but they frequently tend towards benders in these preliminary days if none of them are having any luck drawing sponsors.

As far as I know, Haymitch and Chaff never had anything to do with the 'dating' of rich Capitolites. Interest in Blight waned rapidly a few years after his victory following a string of unfortunate drunken incidents, including his hurling down the dress-front of a pretty young actress he was accompanying to a movie opening. I don't think he considers this a bad thing overall, and he plays up the crude ill-educated persona at every opportunity.

Kaylee taps me on the shoulder and returns my notes with a vague smile. Behind her, Dom appears to have passed out over the table. She wanders back over to him, pokes him once or twice, shakes her head and ambles over to the nearest Games staff member for help. I decide to leave her to it and escape to prepare for my brief trial by camera.

One of the many changes our current Head Gamemaker brought in was separate pre-Games interviews for each mentor, which means I can no longer rely on Beetee doing most of the talking. Caesar Flickerman always makes an effort to ask me predictable questions which he expects I'll have prepared an answer to. His occasional colleagues (one of Claudius Templesmith, Oriana Darkmoor or Idris Mettle these last five years) can vary in their attitudes; Idris is usually decent and Oriana tends to get annoyed with my stuttering and usually lets Caesar hold their side of the conversation as soon as I manage to tangle my words once. Claudius is the worst by far. He seems to actively enjoy targeting my weakness, often asking difficult and moderately off-topic questions and mocking me when I struggle to answer. The only solace I have is that he is just as unpleasant to other victors too.

This year it's Oriana Darkmoor taking up the second seat, her face expressionless beneath the heavy make-up and artfully domed hairstyle. She sits back and lets Caesar ask me about my tribute (Antimony is determined. She will surprise people) and my hopes or guesses for the area (Something unusual. Not just a forest).

I certainly hope the latter is true—tributes playing on cleverness and cunning generally do better when there's something a bit different that they can turn to their advantage, and last year's arena was fairly generic. I don't explain this though, and instead face the first of Oriana's questions about Antimony's parade costume. This I have prepared for, and give Lorcan's spiel about reflecting the glare of technology and how the shining silver is appropriate for someone named for a metallic element.

Elemental names are not uncommon in our district, though are usually a trend the richer folk tend towards more than the poor. Antimony told me that her parents deliberately named her and her siblings (her brothers Zircon, Mercury and Wolfram and sisters Cobalt and Astatine) like that to irk anyone who would want to make a class issue out of it; her innate drive to irritate others is apparently well inherited.

I fill out the last of my twenty minutes discussing the newly-formed alliance between Antimony, Axel and Kerstin and how I hope they can work together to overcome the admittedly steep odds. I'm released to the on-cue applause of the studio audience and trade nods with Beetee offstage as he prepares to make up some positive claims about Nikon, who he doesn't even like.

I'm tempted to wait and listen in, but decide that leaving our two tributes alone with just the Capitol members of our team is a disaster waiting to happen. I only got a few minutes to confirm that the alliance was settled with Antimony before I had to head over here, and left her with instructions to wash up and use the notepad I left in her room to write down anything useful she had learned today. I have some hope she might have even listened. Nikon, however is another story; he has so far ignored all suggestions and attempted conversations with Beetee about strategy, presentation or basic civility. Unlike Antimony, who seems to have got past her initial instincts of 'make them pay, I'm dead anyway' and is actually making an attempt to play the Game, Nikon seems only interested in causing as much trouble for us and anyone else before he inevitably dies.

Sure enough, I can hear him arguing with Gloria the moment the Training Center lift reaches our floor—it sounds like our Escort decided to wait on dinner until Beetee and I returned, and for whatever reason Nikon decided that he didn't want to use the food delivery set-up in his room to tide him over. He has Gloria backed into a corner of the kitchen, using his height advantage over her to look menacing. Off to the side of him, our two assigned avoxes are hovering uncertainly.

I walk over to our male tribute and grab him by the ear, hauling sharply and stepping back clear of his wild swing. He stumbles off balance for a second, and while he catches himself on the nearest chair I calmly pick up one of the steak-knives that have been set out for our upcoming meal. He glances between my face and the knife in my hands, then sneers and flexes his hands aggressively.

"You wouldn't do anything to me. You still need me to go die for the glory of the Capitol remember?"

I roll my eyes and glance at his hands, wishing he'd turn this aggression towards actually making an attempt in the Games; he clearly has the selfish mindset necessary to be a victor and isn't afraid to use what advantages he has. Unfortunately he doesn't have many of those.

I look at his hands again and tell him, "You, yes. Fingers? No…"

He takes an experimental step towards me and I raise the knife, gripping it like I did before I plunged a similar weapon into the neck of a tribute from District One. He stops and looks confused? Annoyed? I'm not entirely sure. Then he turns and storms away, shoving past Antimony, who is standing in the hallway entrance, and slamming the door to his room shut behind him.

She rolls her eyes, rubbing her shoulder and says, "He's not going to make it ten minutes, is he?"

I nod, taking a deep breath and forcing my fingers to release the knife, trying to stay calm. Whenever I'm threatened I seem to slip back into my inner monster easily enough, but once the moment has passed, it can be hard to come back out. One of the avoxes steps forward to fix the askew place setting and chair, while the other goes back into the kitchen and brings a shaken Gloria something to drink. Our Escort seems to have lost her overbearing chirpiness—for all her ruffles and demeanour, she's still a small woman barely two years older than me, and entirely lacking in any sort of physical training.

She smiles weakly at me and says, "Knife. I'll have to remember that one."

She finishes her drink and stands, flattening her layered skirts and straightening the fluttering ribbons around her neck. "I need to…I'll just…I'll go get changed for dinner. Yes, Beetee should be back soon and we can all eat together. Won't that be lovely."

She scurries away to recover herself and I see Antimony watching her retreating back with a thoughtful expression. I clear my throat and my tribute turns back to me and hands me the notebook, several pages filled with her messy scrawl.

"So I found the plants station, but all they had was some sort of litch…leek…mossy stuff. And some mushrooms that looked almost the same as what were poisonous."

I smile encouragingly and try to decipher her writing as she continues to describe her day's efforts.


	6. Chapter 6

District Three has always had a distinct disadvantage in the individual tribute evaluations as we sit just after the two strongest Career districts. After seeing well-trained athletes crush training assistants with a variety of weapons, the Gamemakers often treat the District Three assessments as a convenient coffee break before they have to grade the kids from Four. Antimony, who has spent each night assiduously practicing her knife-throwing, decides to use this as her private demonstration skill, though she does mention that the girl from Two has already publically shown her own superior ability.

I don't know or care what Nikon does and the boy slouches back into the apartments and heads straight to his room, ignoring Beetee's half-hearted invitation to talk. My dear friend shrugs and cheerfully returns to his own work. Antimony stomps in twenty minutes later looking upset and glances towards her own room before sighing resignedly and joining us on the living room couches.

"I froze up," she admits reluctantly, picking at the cushion hems. "Just at first, and I couldn't seem to throw straight. I got better, but by then they were all busy talking and stuff."

Beetee adjusts his glasses and shuffles his papers into a neat pile, which he sets aside.

"Some of them will see the end results, the targets, even if they seemed distracted. And even if they don't it's not the worst outcome."

"A low score means…"

"No target on your back," Beetee finishes for me.

"It means no sponsors, though," Antimony snaps back, her fidgeting nails hooking into the silk, catching on any loose threads and tugging them loose.

"If you make it past the initial hours, we have sponsors who will help out regardless of your score," Beetee tells her. He waves at the pile of papers beside him, and at my folder of technical drawings and scribbled calculations.

"Assuming you reach that point with your allies, yes that does include Kerstin if possible—don't scowl, trios get more air-time than pairs—try to do something interesting. Together. Make a plan, build a weapon, or a fortress. Set up some traps. Give the Gamemakes a reason to keep you around for a little while longer. The more you do, the more you stand out, the more likely it is that other sponsors will come to you."

Antimony pauses her cushion destruction to turn this over, then says, "Yeah, but that girl last year, what's-her-name what won, she did that and they kept sending mutts after her. And they always set up alliances against one another, make 'em fight. If we fight them, we'll lose."

Beetee sighs and rubs his head, looking to me.

"If you want to win you'll…have to…have…to…"

"Fight them eventually. If you're interesting, the Gamemakers will delay that fight long enough for you to think up some way to beat them."

"Maybe," she says dubiously.

"Maybe," Beetee agrees. "But maybe is better than certain death. Which is what will happen if you and your allies try charging the cornucopia or go your separate ways and wander around looking lost."

Antimony looks unconvinced, but shrugs and says "I guess…I guess it's better than that. I want to get back at someone before I go. Might as well be the Career pack. And if I win it's better life for all of my folks. That's worth trying."

She draws a shaky breath and forces a wry smile. "So what now?"

Beetee and I glance at one another; I know he wants some time and space to work on his current project.

"Go, relax until….dinner," I tell her. "Practice." I mime throwing a knife, which earns me another half-smile.

There's no point trying to plan presentation strategy until we see her training score, as we will undoubtedly adapt her approach depending on that. Lorcan assured me that he has her outfit sufficiently sorted, running with the metallic element of her name. Portia stayed with him, where she will be of more use (and out of range of any idiot tributes who might try to target her), and the male stylist Caratacus seems to prefer delivering his arrogant commentary from a distance. After Nikon's refusal to cooperate with his mentor, Beetee cheerfully told the stylist to do as he liked. I am fully expecting fireworks tomorrow and intend to spend whatever time I'm not working with Antimony somewhere well away from this apartment.

Antimony rises quietly and slouches over to the kitchen, presumably to borrow a knife, leaving myself and Beetee in peace.

"You know she's almost certainly not going to make it," he says. A statement not a question.

"Neither was Hertzy," I reply.

"She didn't," he reminds me. "Neither did Switch last year or Arissa three years back. Or Dalta, Peying, Dell, Tura, Gigi…"

"Or Balia," I finish for him when he hesitates. I can almost say it without a lump forming in my throat. "Seebee, or Allasan. But I did."

He laughs bitterly. "Yes, you did. But you are a lot smarter than any of them were, and you were lucky. You had an arena you could turn to your advantage, a good start and even then it almost wasn't enough."

I roll my eyes at him—like I need reminding. "Maybe she will be…"

"Lucky too? I suppose anything is possible, however unlikely."

He smiles and reaches for his stack of papers, spreading them back around the lounge table.

"Better her than him," I tell him bluntly as I pick up my own work and settle back comfortably.

He nods sharply and says, "You have no argument from me there."

~xXx~

Antimony's interview dress is pretty stunning. I can see that the original design was deep gray-green with circuitry designs heavily embroidered in bright silver thread. Lorcan has added an asymmetric shoulder piece shaped like a jagged lump of the crude metal for which our tribute was named, which gradually bleeds into the embroidery, as though melting into the circuit design. Highly appropriate given the use of antimony-based solders in fine electronics.

The girl herself seems content enough to use her (limited) knowledge of electronics as the lead-in for her interview, aiming for quiet intelligence similar to what I portrayed. Antimony has spent enough years helping crudely repair scrounged devices to have a working, if unorthodox knowledge of electronics. Of course, admitting to such a background would get her friends and family in trouble so she instead tells the crowd that she is good at using whatever resources she has to their best ability.

True to her nature, she doesn't praise our Capitol team, but doesn't say anything bad about them, or the Capitol in general, either. When asked about what she likes about the Capitol, she manages to turn the discussion to the wide range of sweets available, and takes a minute to talk up her alliance with Axel. I'm not surprised she snubs Kerstin, but again, she doesn't specifically speak against the girl from Six.

Her performance is largely overshadowed by the Careers who preceded her, and by Nikon, who makes it nearly forty-five seconds into his interview before disparaging the Capitol. Our boy bluntly states that the Capitol and its citizens are little better than the monkeys in the zoo, contributing nothing to Panem beyond scratching each-others' heads and flinging their shit at one-another. While Caesar gapes in shock, Nikon turns and points at the Careers, and at the other tributes who are quietly waiting their turns, and declares that they are no better for going along tamely.

I shake my head sadly, Beetee buries his head in his hands and on-stage I see Antimony mouth the words "such an idiot," which should hopefully spare her from the fall-out. Caesar cuts in before Nikon can say anything else and directs him to return to his seat. Two of the Peacekeepers, who flank the stage exits in their ceremonial uniforms, step forwards and our boy reluctantly shuts up and sits tight.

"I hope he doesn't have a family," Mags mutters to me softly. Beside her, Gabriela nods, her mouth drawn tight.

"I did try to stop him," Beetee whispers from my other side. "I even sent word to Caesar, warned him that Nikon was being an idiot and might do something stupid."

"Probably why he had those Peacekeepers ready," Mags says, nodding to the stage, where an additional four white-suited guards are now standing at the rear of the stage.

The saddest part is that Nikon isn't entirely wrong. His description of the general Capitol citizenry is quite apt and his anger is, for the most part, properly directed. Unfortunately, a lone boy screaming insults isn't going to achieve much more than his guaranteed death tomorrow morning. And the likely penalizing of his family, and possibly some or all of our District Three Games team.

There is a strange air of uncertainty that hovers over the remaining tributes, each being very careful not to say anything remotely bad about the Capitol, the Games or the laws of Panem after the stark reminder Nikon (and the Peacekeepers) presented them. That is until the boy from Twelve, the last to speak, who gives Caesar useless answers for the majority of his interview time and finishes by loudly declaring that he's glad to see one other person on the stage who is willing to stand up and tell it like it is.

I can only glimpse a sliver of Haymitch's head from my seat, so it's hard to say if his reaction is frustration, apathy or silent approval. I would be equally unsurprised by any of them (I know from watching on Chaff's private feed that Haymitch expressed a few similar views of the Capitol during his own time in the arena, though these moments were never publically shown).

Beetee and I, as well as the victor from Twelve are all pulled aside as we try to return to our apartments for a last word with our tributes. Haymitch is told to wait as Beetee and I are directed into a small room in the upper floor above the Viewing Hall where the Gamemakers and their staff reside. We are joined by a Peacekeeper with sergeant markings, one of the younger Gamemakers and one of Caesar Flickerman's higher-ranked production assistants.

The Gamemaker, who barely looks past school age, waves for us to sit in the two chairs and confers quietly with the production woman while the Peacekeeper glares steadily.

"Igerna here tells me you believed there might be issues with your male tribute, and that you reported these misgivings prior to the interviews," The young Gamemaker says, nodding to Beetee, who nods back nervously.

"Yes, this was most proper. I assume you did inform your tribute such sentiments were unsuitable…yes, of course. In which case you can hardly be blamed for his unfortunate actions tonight."

The young man smiles warmly. "I see no reason why you or your team should be penalized, then. Especially considering the good work you, both of you, do in advancing our nation's technology. I will speak to Ms Goldacre—no, she won't be replaced" he holds up his hands as I open my mouth to defend our Escort, "but she may require some counselling and special training to help ensure such incidents don't occur in future. Now, the only remaining issue is your female tribute."

His gaze shifts from Beetee, whose nervous fidgeting has calmed since being informed he wasn't considered responsible for Nikon's stupidity.

"I have been informed that your female tribute espoused similar unacceptable views about the Capitol, and the Games, though she had the sense to do so only in private. I need an assurance that such opinions will not be voiced on camera, should she survive the initial hours of the Games tomorrow morning."

He looks between us expectantly. I glance at Beetee, swallow, and try to get my words out.

"I don't believe….I…Antimony…"

"Is unlikely to make any public statements against the Capitol," Beetee finishes for me. "Of course we can't guarantee anything with complete certainty, but if you speak to your—ah—sources about Antimony's private conversations, you will notice she has been nothing but compliant for the last few days. I believe she had some moments of instability immediately after her reaping; the shock of being chosen to represent your district will do that. But she seems to have realized her error of judgement. I would expect her to be no more likely to display anti-Capitol or anti-Games sentiments than any other tribute in the arena."

The young Gamemaker nods approvingly, stroking his artfully curled beard. "Yes, well, as you say nothing is certain. I suppose there is no reason to be precipitous and we don't want to start any dangerous precedents."

He nods again and waves lazily to the door. "You are free to go. I hardly need to remind you that your public role as Hunger Games victors will require some statement of support for the Capitol in the near future, though it can wait until an appropriate moment. Oh and Mr Chan, I have been informed that there will be no need for you to contact your tribute's family tomorrow morning."

Beetee nods stiffly—I doubt either of us had any belief that Nikon was making it more than an hour into the Games after his performance tonight. My best guess is that they will place him near some of the more vicious Career tributes at the beginning and let nature take its course. If he does see sense and choose to run, he will likely be used as a demonstration of whatever natural dangers this year's arena holds. Either way he won't see another sunset and, by the sounds of things, neither will his parents.

We pass Haymitch on the way out, looking sombre and painfully sober; he winces at the bright overhead light, rubbing his forehead and looking much older than his twenty-five years of age.

"No trouble?" he asks softly. Beetee shrugs and I give him a small smile, which he returns shakily.

"Kids need to learn when to be seen and not heard," he mutters, rubbing his forehead again as he is summoned to his own meeting.

Beetee and I hurry back down to the foyer and take the lift up to the third floor in silence. Alongside our avox staff, our rooms have acquired a pair of white-clad Peacekeepers who both turn sharply at our entrance. The woman is tall and lithe, and looks to be nearly forty; the man is younger, stocky and a little wide-eyed.

"Your male tribute has been confined to his room. His door will remain locked until he is retrieved tomorrow morning. One of us will accompany the stylist to ensure full cooperation."

The woman hesitates and glances towards the living room. Blinking away the afterimage of the kitchen lights I realize there's a shiny black head poking up above one of the couches.

"Your female tribute wished to speak with you before she is similarly confined. I saw no reason to refuse this request, though I ask you make it brief."

I nod and we both hurry in to the living room where Antimony is chewing on her lip and staring out at the bright city lights through a gap in the curtains. She has her leg drawn up under her, her cheek resting on her right knee, both hands wrapped around her shin as she gently rocks back and forth. She starts sharply when we move into her peripheral vision.

"I don't want to die," she says softly, her shoulders shaking as she unwraps herself from her thinking position. "I'm going to die tomorrow, aren't I?"

Beetee sits on the armrest and tells her, "Not necessarily."

She glances between our faces, the slightest flicker of hope lighting her dark eyes. "They're not…?"

She trails off, swallows heavily and nods, looking back out to the lights, where blasts of competing music hum against the partially sound-proofed glass.

"I'll try to, you know. Play it right. I don't want my folks to suffer any more than they need to."

I sit beside her, not so close as to crowd her and try to smile encouragingly. If I've learned one thing mentoring tributes over the last decade, it's that you never know what might happen in the arena. I've had several girls who I would have given better odds to surviving than Antimony, who ended up dying quickly. At least one I would have considered weaker made it several days. She's a small girl, physically weak and limited to fighting at short range with relatively weak projectiles if she wants much chance of winning.

She's not smart, not in the way schools judge such things, but she has nearly fifteen years of cunning learned from her rough upbringing. She's adaptable, stubborn, and has two people in the arena who won't be trying to kill her. At least not right away.

"Just remember to…to make your…make your…."

"Own advantages," Beetee finishes. "Use what you have. Every little bit counts."

Antimony huffs a small laugh, but nods and stands shakily. "I should get some sleep, I guess."

We both stand with her and lead the way to the hall, passing the Peacekeepers who fall in behind us. Antimony turns to face us at her door.

"I just…thanks. For caring, I guess. I dunno…"

She bites her lip and glances at the floor. "You'll both, you know..."

"We'll be there," Beetee assures her.

"Watching, always," I add.

Antimony nods one last time and disappears. The male Peacekeeper steps forward and attaches a device to her door, which hums for a few seconds, then clicks loudly.

"It's electromagnetic," he explains slowly when I peer curiously at it. "Ensures the bolt remains in place even if someone has managed to re-wire the standard electric lock. She won't be leaving until we want her to."

I barely restrain myself from rolling my eyes as he nods, content with his work, and shuffles off to his senior partner. I exchange one last tired look with Beetee as we retire to our own rooms, where we will be woken in the morning by Gloria's chirpy summons to watch yet another year of children being slaughtered.

~xXx~

I join the crowd around the coffee urn as we wait for the large screens in the Viewing Hall to switch from the morning news broadcast. Sipping my large mug, I stand with a group of older victors, absently listening to the swirling conversations which ripple softly through the large room. People are carefully avoiding any mention of the public displays of disobedience at the interviews last night, though I do hear comments about the dress the girl from Eight was wearing (Cecelia apparently argued long, hard and unsuccessfully with her stylist about it) and about the boy from Nine, whose public interest at his decent looks and surprisingly high training score (he was given an 8, the equal highest of any non-Careers this year) was offset by a slight speech impediment.

The boy from One, a strikingly handsome eighteen-year-old aptly named Desire Holland, is apparently the public favorite heading in, though he is closely trailed by the strong-bodied Jethro West from Two. None of the Career girls stand out as much, though they all have their own traditional fan clubs and supporters amongst the Capitol audience. Of the outsiders, it sounds like Hawker from Eleven (another of the 8s) has a little popularity, and even Axel from Six has at least one fan waving a sign with his name on it. I don't see anyone supporting Three, and we currently have no active sponsors for this year. I suspect that if Antimony, Kerstin, and Axel actually make it clear of the cornucopia and start looking interesting, that might change.

The screens flicker off and the lights dim, alerting us to the imminent countdown, and there's a flurry of movement as the waiting victors and Escorts find seats among the varied couches and chairs facing the end wall. I squeeze in between Pelline and Seeder, all of us hovering near Diya and young Sarnia, who is pale and anxious. I remember my first year mentoring, how shaken Allasan's death left me even though I knew it was inevitable. How I wondered at the older victors standing around eating breakfast and sipping their drinks while the children in their care were brutally killed in high resolution. It all just seems normal now.

Diya rests her hand on Sarnia's back as the camera follows the rise of skinny Rosalee from Eight, who is shaking so hard she fumbles her district token—a small piece of embroidered fabric—which flutters away on the wind. She grabs wildly at it, nearly overbalancing off her platform and barely recovers, watching numbly as the piece of cloth flutters away on the breeze. Her face twists, nose crinkled and I see the expression mirrored on the faces of several other tributes as the camera pans around.

It takes me a moment to register what I'm seeing, and my heart leaps a little as I share a glance with Beetee two couches over. The tribute platforms and cornucopia are resting in an open field of rocky dirt which extends out in all directions from their ring. Beyond the circle of trembling children there are none of the expected trees, mountains, fields or dunes we've become accustomed to for Hunger Games arenas. Instead the tributes are ringed by an urban graveyard of vehicles. Cars, vans, trucks large and small, train carriages, even hovercraft hulls are strewn everywhere in various states of disrepair, some sitting alone in the rocky dirt, others stacked three, four, five high in mounds that span up to nearly fifty feet in girth.

Antimony and Axel are only separated by four tributes and are able to communicate some sort of plan by waving at one another. Kerstin is six places around on Antimony's other side, blocked from view of her district partner by the cornucopia. I see her try to catch Antimony's attention but my girl is busy looking the other way, or at the scattered supplies around her.

Thankfully the bulk of the Careers seem to be on the opposite side to Antimony and Axel—I notice Nikon and Colver from Twelve are both flanked by vicious volunteers. When the gong sounds and the scramble begins Jethro from Two doesn't waste any time, tackling the skinny boy from Twelve around the waist. They hit the ground together, the smaller boy gasping as the air is driven out of his lungs, and his bigger opponent lays in with his fists until his district partner dashes by, tossing him a knife. Nikon initially fares better as the girls from One and Four ignore him to race for their own weapons. Unfortunately he shows his characteristic lack of sense by dashing in and to the right, where a large pack and short sword are wedged in the dirt. He barely manages to grasp the hilt before his arm is struck by Opal Kelley, nearly severing his wrist with a sharp blow from her curved blade. He shrieks and stumbles backwards, falling in the dirt. The girl from One wastes no time slashing at his unprotected face, carving open his cheek from temple to chin. Her third strike cuts his throat.

Behind them Chaff's tribute, the outside favorite Hawker, successfully forces his way between the pair from Four, slamming the girl's knee with the back-end of his axe as he dashes past. The kids from Nine also escape, the boy hauling a decently sized backpack, the girl wielding a pair of knives inexpertly as she slashes at anyone who comes near.

Unfortunately Kerstin is one of them and falls to the ground with a cry as the knives carve thin lines across her side and upper arm, marking the bright orange jumpsuit that is this year's tribute uniform with two spreading red-brown streaks. The girl from six regains her footing and spots Antimony and Axel, who appear to have wisely scavenged from the outer ring of supplies only, and starts heading towards their retreating backs. She is stopped by Valaria from Two, who tosses a knife from hand to hand, then hurls it with vicious accuracy into Kerstin's stomach. Before the blade sinks home, the girl from Two already has another in her hand and jams it effortlessly between Kerstin's ribs, ending one third of our alliance.

By the time Kerstin is done dying the rest of the Careers have gathered and established control over the remaining supplies. We see a few glimpses of Antimony and Axel jogging together between the scattered shells of vehicles as they head north-east. The pair from Nine go west together, the boy from Eleven south-west and the girl from seven south-ish. The pretty fourteen-year-old from Eight decides to try her luck staying close to the cornucopia and scrambles her way quietly into a rusted car about three hundred yards away, watching closely as the Careers gather their spoils into a pile at the cornucopia mouth.

After the customary wait, the cannon is sounded eleven times and the mentors whose role is complete for another year stand to share a drink before going about their duties. Beetee heads to the phone despite the message that Nikon's family won't be waiting and returns half an hour later to sit beside me as I watch the girl from Four trying to find something to reduce the swelling in her injured leg.

"Only Gowan on the other end. Seemed cheerful." He grins at my expression. "Yes, well, he said he expected Antimony to follow shortly, and that I'd be able to stop wasting my time on, what was the phrase? Ah yes, worthless gutter rats who don't deserve the chance to bite the hand that feeds them."

I shake my head—the poor don't exactly get the choice to not be poor, especially if the factories refuse to employ them. A part of me wants Antimony to win if only to rub it in our loathsome Mayor's face.

"Anyway, I'll be out this afternoon and tomorrow during some of the day, but I'll cover overnight if needed so you can get some sleep. I saw Kaylee before; she said she'd stay around to help Dom for at least a day or two. For her that's pretty good."

I make a mental note to track down the District Six victors before they get too far into their withdrawals to work out some sort of plan. I close my notebook, already filled with my rough map of the arena and the tribute positions as well as notes on what each of the tributes has at their disposal, and join several of the other ladies at the buffet tables for an early lunch.


	7. Chapter 7

Antimony and Axel decide, after about three hours slow jog-walk to set up camp in one of the large mounds. From watching all the tributes disperse I quickly noticed that the vehicle piles become scarcer further from the central cornucopia they go, leaving large expanses of rocky earth between them. Taking mine and Beetee's advice to heart, Antimony proposes building some sort of armed fortress at the peak of this particular pile (about five vehicles high in the middle), from which they can construct some sort of projectile weapons to launch at anyone who tries to climb up and catch them. Axel takes a little time to consider this, circling the thirty-foot wide heap of rusting metal twice before agreeing.

By sundown they both seem to have acquired the knack of clambering up and down the unstable heap and settle inside the shell of a simple car that forms the peak of their little mountain. With practiced ease, Axel strips several arm-long pieces of metal from some of the lone vehicles strewn singly in the half-mile around their mound, while Antimony pulls out whatever wiring, seat-belts and other material pieces she can find. They carry these into their 'fort' and, using sharp-edged pieces of metal or glass with cloth wrappings as knives, begin to experiment.

After a few tries, Antimony settles on a heavy dart, using the thinner straight pieces of metal with a sharp point of broken glass bound securely to the tip with strings of former seat-covers. She also, at Axel's suggestion, ties on some flaps at the base to help with stability, like the flights of an arrow.

The boy from Six braids some more fabric strips into a sort of rope and tries tying it in various ways to a heftier metal rod, though he sets aside his crafting when the daylight fades. They both look to the sky as the anthem blares and the pictures of the slain tributes are shown. On our screen we get the full replays of their deaths in full gory glory.

This is followed by the first night interviews, once it's clear that none of the tributes are going to do anything interesting in the next few hours. Each of the mentors of the deceased tributes are given one last chance to reflect on their unfortunates before the names are lost to memory, except for the few who will never forget them. Beetee, who is on first, is forced to work in some sort of comment about Nikon's death being a clear sign of where Capitol disfavor will get you.

I can see clearly in my mind's eye our Mayor Gowan's smug grin at this. But there is a time to fight, and that time has not yet come. For now we are best served by playing along at being good little Capitol pets and waiting for the right opportunity to unite. Goodness knows there have been enough poorly-planned and scattered attempts at rebellion over the decades that were quickly crushed out.

Diya and Sarnia take the stage next, our newest victor still a little shaken by the brutal death of a girl she apparently became friendly with. Diya dryly told me earlier in the day that Sarnia would learn to keep a distance from her tributes from now on, if she intended to continue mentoring. I wouldn't be surprised if the younger woman stayed home and let my old friend continue on in the years to come. As much as Diya agrees with our aims and hopes of a future without the Games, she, like many other victors, seems drawn to them each year. The strategy, the angles, the clever twists and turns that mentors, tributes and Gamemakers all put in play is addictive in its own way, and while tributes mostly die and Gamemakers are occasionally replaced, most victors are enabled to play the Game over and over without such consequences for a loss.

Even I find myself more drawn in than I would like. Then again, I was always a little drawn to the Games, from a sense of morbid curiosity and logic more than anything. Combined with my excellent memory, I would often watch and think 'why don't they do this' or 'don't they realize that'. Little things that seemed obvious to me, that would have completely changed the outcomes.

Opportunities to form alliances, to set traps, to turn stronger opponents against one another and have them kill each other off, all the little things that combine to determine who goes home wearing a crown and who goes home in a box. Then I have to remind myself that, for some people, death would be a kinder choice than victory. Most people don't have that inner monster to fall back on, where they won't feel the guilt for the blood they shed or the friends they might have been forced to betray to get out alive.

For the pretty ones, there's a life of 'dating' the wealthy Capitol citizens, with likely harsh consequences if they turn down such an offer. I don't know this for sure, but I strongly suspect that it's the case. And that President Snow, or at least one of his senior officials is involved in arranging it. I remember him telling me back before the fiftieth Games that he was going to tighten his hold on all of his victors. Those of us who came before would be harder to push around, but those who won since, and who wouldn't know any differently would probably be much easier to intimidate.

I think of poor Haymitch, whose mother and girlfriend died in a tragic house-fire less than a week after he returned to District Twelve. They had been packing up some old family keep-sakes to move to his new house when the girlfriend apparently knocked over an oil lamp. The mother, whose leg had been crippled in an accident some years before, was unable to escape and the girl foolishly stayed to try and drag her to safety. The door had apparently been faulty or blocked and both of them burned before they were able to reach another exit. According to the official record.

I recall Haymitch also mentioning his younger brother in passing, who died around the same time. I think it had something to do with a Peacekeeper, though I believe it was never publically reported. I wonder if he was 'encouraged' to join the dating rings that the other victors who followed after him did, and refused. And whether the retaliation against him was presented as a warning to the others like Gabriela, Noah and Felix. I certainly don't recall any of them having tragic news stories about sudden deaths in the family.

I focus back to the television when Kaylee takes the stage and reminds viewers that, while Kerstin is dead, her allies in Axel and Antimony live on, and that she will continue supporting them. It doesn't exactly bring in a rush of sponsors, but I see Vivianus, the District Six Escort, fielding a few calls. Most people would back the taller, stronger (and better looking) Axel over Antimony. Even I'm not sure how or when she intends to turn on him. I think her plan involved some loose idea of him dying in their inevitable face-off with the Career alliance, while she somehow escaped.

As far as arena plans go, it's not the best, though it does fundamentally stick to the most important principle: staying alive at any cost. I doze through the rest of the interviews, suddenly weary, and stay curled up in my comfortable couch corner as the footage shifts back to glimpses of restlessly sleeping tributes all bedded down for the night.

The pair from District Nine have taken shelter in an old train carriage, which was obviously once used for transporting people as there are still comfortable seats they can stretch out to sleep on. The girl Afifa dozes fitfully as the half-full moonlight shines through the shattered window, one of the knives she claimed grasped firmly in her right hand. Her district partner Darshan sits in the shadows, watching carefully, the other knife wedged in his crude belt.

About a half mile from them, Hawker from Eleven is huddled inside a car hull perched on top of a small pile of scrap—like our alliance, he realized the advantage of the high ground. Unfortunately for him, he appears to have fallen while climbing about; a long, jagged cut along his lower leg is crudely bound with the severed sleeve of his bright orange jumpsuit.

Elmilla Langford, the lean eighteen-year-old from District Seven is shown scowling at the moon-lit landscape as she tucks herself into a truck-bed about half-way up a large pile. Most of the tributes from Seven are quite happy surviving in the more common forest-based arenas. She'll be particularly displeased with this urban scrap-heap, I expect.

The Career pack, after poking around some of the closer vehicles, decided to set up camp at the cornucopia until morning, sorting their supplies and planning their hunting path. Unbelievably, they didn't find little Rosalee Roth, who managed to crawl under a half-rotten seat cover in her rusted car, and stayed silent and still even when the boy from Four poked at the lump with his spear. The Careers, obviously not half as burdened with brains as they are muscles, decided it was a lump of fabric and continued their meandering exploration.

The screen cuts to Antimony and Axel, the latter still awake on guard, holding his metal rod as a club. My girl has curled up under several seat-covers of her own, using them as blankets and pillows, and appears to be resting rather comfortably. I decide they're well enough away from any trouble and tell Gloria that I'll be catching my own sleep now, while I can. Our Escort, who I know from past experience carries a stash of pills in her purse to keep up with the typical Capitol party hours, waves me away absently, obviously far more involved in her conversation with the handsome Escorts for Districts Four and Seven. I shake my head as she is joined by the two young female Escorts for Eleven and Twelve and seek out my bed.

~xXx~

Pretty Rosalee Roth's luck runs out in the late morning of the second day of the Games. She patiently waits for the Career pack to gather up their supplies and start their march south-west before crawling from her cramped hiding place and hurrying to the cornucopia to see what she can scavenge. She grabs herself a bag and begins stuffing it with anything useful—remnants of food, unwanted tools and weapons, several water bottles. She rips open a packet of bland crackers and starts munching greedily, washing it down with half a bottle of fresh water, and wipes her mouth on her bright orange sleeve. As she tosses the cracker wrapper and watches it flutter away in breeze, a second movement catches her eye. She whirls to face the approaching rat and flaps her hands at it, trying to shoo it away. When it continues to sniff its way closer, eying the cracker crumbs in the dirt, Rosalee picks up a discarded sword and pokes at it, trying to scare it off. As it shuffles closer to her I realize it's much larger than most rats I've seen and, judging by the gleam in its beady eyes as it sits back on its haunches just out of reach and sniffs the air, is some sort of semi-intelligent mutt.

Rosalee lunges forward, trying to skewer it, but the rat is too fast and nimbly scurries to the side. Her second swing catches it a sharp blow as it scrabbles forward on all fours and tries to nip at her ankles, and it falls back, squealing loudly. She tries to silence it and swings a loping blow sideways at its head, which does successfully decapitate the little mutt, but also clangs into the side of the cornucopia, sending a metallic chime echoing through the rocky wasteland scattered with vehicle skeletons.

This alerts several more rat mutts in the area which come scrambling through the dirt and rusted cars to form a half-circle around her as she starts edging her way away from the cornucopia, heavy pack slung awkwardly over her shoulder. She continues to wave her sword ineffectually at them as they start converging, driving her back towards the south. She tries to outrun them at first, but wears out fast carrying the heavy load. She glances between the small oncoming rodents and her heavy backpack stuffed with supplies and decides that comfort isn't worth the fight. She tosses the bag at them, and, as she apparently hoped, they stop chasing her and fall to tearing her hard-won supplies apart instead. Turning away, tears of frustration already gleaming on her cheeks, little Rosalee starts shuffling on away from the squealing rats with just her sword and one half-empty water bottle. She makes it about a quarter mile before stopping sharply, apparently only now considering that this was the same direction that the Career pack went just an hour ahead of her.

In the distance I can see a bright gleam of silver at the top of the tallest mound in the area and apparently Rosalee sees it too because she drops to the ground and starts to crawl slowly towards the nearest cover—a heavily rusted hovercraft hull about fifty feet away. Unfortunately for her it is too late; the gleam is from the sword Desire is carrying, who was using the height of the car-pile to look for signs of tributes. He clearly either saw her or the scurrying rat swarm and he calls out to his allies at the base of the mound. The pack hurries back in Rosalee's direction and the bright orange jumpsuit makes it hard to hide; the hovercraft holding the girl from Eight is quickly surrounded. Opal, who is the prettiest of the Careers, but not as pretty as young Rosalee, takes great delight in carving up the poor girl's face before she runs her through.

I turn away, even my hardened stomach not up for outright torture, and help provide a shield of bodies between the screens and poor Cecelia. The young victor from Eight excuses herself to the restroom the moment her tribute's cannon fires and doesn't emerge for another hour. Her Escort, an uptight older man with an extravagantly curled moustache offers her an arm to lean on and some pills to help her face the cameras.

Antimony and Axel get their own rat problem a few hours later. Both kids are no stranger to going without food for a few days and have stashed their meagre supply (one small bag of dried fruit and a single energy bar) in the corner of their car fort, agreeing not to touch it until at least day three. Antimony is busy scrounging more broken glass shards and seat-belt straps from a lone car about fifty yards from their scrap heap and Axel is putting in some practice on his newly-created weapon when the oversized rat scrabbles quietly up the back of their rusted heap and starts chewing on the plastic wrapping of their fruit bag.

Axel, who is standing on the flat earth just in front of their heap, doesn't hear it at first. He is too engaged with his throwing weapon: three hefty, essentially spherical chunks of metal tied at the ends of their braided-seatbelt ropes, all knotted together. Bolas, according to an impressed Arturus Nohvera, watching from the next couch over. Difficult to master, but very effective with practice and the strength to throw them properly. It appears Axel is no stranger to the weapon, spinning it easily over his head and throwing with startling accuracy at a target post he has set up forty feet away.

After another two successful throws he nods to himself, coils the cords of his weapon around his hand and begins the careful clamber up the unstable path to their car fort. The rat hears him coming and clamps its jaws on the half-eaten bag, dragging its spoils with it as it climbs through the broken rear window. Axel spots it and yells as he swings, cursing colourfully as he misses, and the creature drops into a gap below, taking the bulk of their food supplies with it.

I probably would have given up pursuit and assumed that the rat mutt had some sort of escape route buried underneath the massive heap of rusted cars. Axel appears too angry to consider logic and begins hauling at the chunks of rusted metal beneath his feet, searching for his foe.

Amazingly, after a minute or so of enraged hunting during which he slices the palm of his hand open on a sharp metal edge and badly wrenches his leg as the unstable pile shifts slightly and drops him five feet, he finds the rat cowering in the corner of the truck-bed he lands in, continuing to chew dried apricot slices.

He kicks the rodent with his good leg as it tries to scurry up over the side, sending its twisting, squealing body sailing out into open air and crashing to the gravel below. The creature tries to flee, aiming for the safety of the nearest lone car but only gets half-way before Axel's bolas slam into its rear end, tangling its feet and crushing one hind leg. Antimony actually gets to the dying creature before he does, having heard the fighting, and slams her current weapon—an eight-inch shard of hardened glass with cloth wrappings at one end for a handle—into the squealing rat's brain.

Axel joins her to recover his weapon, holding the shredded bag of dried fruit in his other hand.

"I got half of it back," he says defensively. Antimony nods absently, examining the oversized rat, whose body is longer than her fore-arm.

"This don't look diseased or nothing. Should be fine to eat, and it's got more than some bits of fruit. Good trade I say."

"Yeah," Axel replies, "But we don't have anything to cook it. Nothing to burn without making us sick from the smoke, and I learned the hard way about raw meat."

Antimony rolls her eyes—I suspect she might have eaten raw rat before—and glances around, before smiling slowly.

"That car front, the hood?" She glances back to her ally for confirmation of the terminology. "It's pretty hot; I burned my hand on it before. We could probably cook up some slices on it."

Axel grins back at her and nods. "Knew you was smart. This way there's no smoke for them to track us."

They go about preparing their meal, both ending up bloody (their one small water-bottle scrounged from the edges of the cornucopia is nearly empty and would be saved for drinking anyway), but ultimately end up well-fed. They're both even smart enough to set a simple box trap with the rat's innards as bait once they finish eating, in case any of its friends are around.

Non unsurprisingly we start getting a few sponsor calls for them, two young men impressed with Axel's artful throwing skills and an older lady who appears horrified at the implication that this isn't the first rat 'dear sweet young Antimony' has eaten in her life. With the combined donations, we can afford to send them some more water and do so immediately. That eats up just over half the money and, without anything else urgently needed by our tributes, Kaylee and I agree to let the rest sit.

Dom, who is technically Axel's mentor vaguely nods when Kaylee explains this to him and returns to his nap. Even she seems a little frustrated with his complete lack of self-control when it comes to their drug of choice. Our Escorts decide to promote our tributes further by doing a joint segment on a talk-show that night, which earns Kaylee enough to send Axel a proper dressing for the jagged wound along the palm of his hand and a miniscule tube of antiseptic cream that both our tributes use on their accumulated scrapes and scratches.

I let Beetee spell me overnight, grinning as he tucks himself into the cabin with three notebooks and a complicated looking holographic display that he shields from my view, informing me that he'll fill me in on the details once I have less pressing matters to worry about. My smile fades at that last comment; his tone suggests that he's not anticipating me to be otherwise distracted for much longer. I spend a few hours tossing and turning before I slip into a restless dream, wandering my own arena once more.

 _Only the green hedges have been replaced with rusted piles of metal, the bright berries and flowers by flashing varicolored lights. I stumble from place to place, the sharp edges of the rusted vehicles stabbing me all over just as the thorns did when I got too close. There's a rustling in the hedges as I try to climb them and I fall backwards as a winged rat explodes above my head, squealing and biting at my face. It flies away singing a nonsense children's' song in Sparrow Harper's cracked, crazy voice. I scramble to my feet and turn to see a silver spear flashing towards my chest. There is a bright flash, both pain and light, blinding, and the overwhelming taste of blood…_

I kick wildly at the sheets that have twisted around my waist, holding me half in my bed as the blood wells on my split lip. Instinctively, I spit at the taste, shuddering with the memory, over a decade old, but still all too fresh for me. I dig my fingernails of my left hand into my right wrist, using the pain as a focus point until the world stops spinning and settles back to reality.

A few more calming breaths and I can sit up, wiping my face clear of blood for a second time. The sharp corner of the bedside table which I must have rolled into has a few spattered marks on it. The blood appears dull brown in the early morning light which is creeping in under my drawn curtains and I spot a second, larger stain on the floor as I struggle free of the tangled sheets and hobble towards the bathroom.

After her first few years as Escort for Three, Gloria wrote up a list of 'essentials' that our rooms are stocked with by the Games staffers. One of mine is a tub of quick-healing cream for small scrapes, cuts, burns and bruises. Between violent nightmares, wandering daydreams while walking or holding cutlery and the occasional simple lack of balance near sharp edges, I've found reasons to use it every year since.

I stare at my reflection in the mirror while I hold the cream-dabbed cloth on the wound, waiting the requisite five minutes for it to seal over. A plain, skinny young woman looks back, not much different to the girl who scrambled her way clear of the arena eleven years ago. There's a few signs of ageing—some small lines around my eyes, a slightly fuller face, a steady accumulation of small scars on my hands and arms from a hundred different lab accidents, but nothing that really screams grown-up. With a little make-up and the right clothes, I could probably still pass as a teenager.

I sometimes feel that the last decade has been nothing but a long, complicated dream which I expect to wake from any moment, seventeen or eighteen again with my family and friends intact. I try to imagine my life without the Hunger Games: working ten hours a day, six days a week for one of the engineering firms in the northern end of Three. I would fill my hours with tedious refinements and on-call problem solving, most likely becoming an expert at one small branch of technology which I would work to improve for my employer.

Any personal innovations or ideas I would have would need to be presented to my senior engineer, who would then blame me if it failed, or take all the credit if it worked. Most design room workers learn quickly that they are better off keeping their heads down, their mouths shut, and their more brilliant ideas to themselves until they have been promoted far enough up the ranks to hold on to any credit they achieve. My old classmate Julez did just this; I last saw him nearly a year ago at a district meeting, standing just behind the shoulder of one of the premier camera producers, a senior assistant. From Ezra, I heard that the other boy I often worked with in classes, Laue Kim, lost his own job in the design rooms just three years in when he apparently argued with his supervisor over who had created a new, improved touch-screen. I've passed him once since, head bowed as he moved with the crowd to his factory job.

I try to imagine a life with family and friends, a tiny apartment on the upper side of town with barely enough space for a bed and basic utilities (I can't genuinely imagine myself actually living with someone else outside my family, and I'd struggle afford anything more than a box in the rich end of town alone). All the rest of the family still together living in their own cramped apartment. Except they wouldn't be, I realize. I try to imagine Balia in her early twenties, possibly married, possibly with children of her own. She'd be as old as Laney was when poor little Wiran was born. Hard to believe; in my dreams and in the conversations I hold by her grave, she is still a girl, still just one day shy of fifteen.

My lip stops stinging and I draw the cloth away, poking tentatively at the sealed cut to be sure it won't re-open easily. Simple, common medicine here in the Capitol. If I'd never been reaped for the Games, even if I became one of the top engineers in District Three I still wouldn't have such easy access to little things like this cream. Even the best paid District citizens earn little more than the garbage collectors and street sweepers in the Capitol.

Shaking my head at the inequality, and at my wandering mind focusing on things that are outside the realm of reality, I start preparing myself to face another day of watching over a surprisingly promising tribute and seeing if this year is the one where the odds fall in our favour.


	8. Chapter 8

The third day of the Games passes quietly for our little alliance. Their box-trap snares another (much smaller) rat, which they cook up the same way as yesterday. Axel makes up a sling from braided fabric to complement his bolas and practices hurling the larger pieces of rocky gravel, his aim steadily improving with time, though the crumbly rock falls apart on contact with anything else. Antimony isn't nearly as accurate and also lacks the strength to throw with any great force, and instead decides to construct a few traps on their rusted fortress. The pair have settled on an easy route to climb to the top of their car-heap which involves zig-zagging up a path of reasonably stable pieces.

Antimony covers several gaps in what would appear to be a more straightforward route to the top with some carefully slashed leather seat-covers, filling the spaces beneath them with sharp pieces of metal and glass. Axel joins her to help build a loose slide of metal parts held by a rope-pull that they can drop on an enemy who tries climbing the rear of their 'fortress', and they both spend a few hours piling their car on top with as many projectiles and other useful scraps as they can find.

Axel finds another use for the leather seat-covers when the rains roll through in the early afternoon, collecting fresh water and funnelling it easily into their three nearly-empty bottles. The essentially-intact car roof keeps them otherwise dry and they huddle together under a heap of material scraps to stave off the cold.

Elmilla from Seven isn't nearly as prepared for the wet weather and stumbles from rusted shell to hull in the southern part of the arena, looking for somewhere dry to settle down. She was caught out in the initial downpour and even when she finds a decent shelter she huddles in the corner shivering uncontrollably from the cold. The Career pack also bunk down inside an old shipping container, huddling for warmth and discussing their strategy. They spotted the pair from Nine in the morning, but lost them after several clever double-backs by the sneaky Darshan and Afifa. Jethro from Two talks about tracking them, using the muddy earth that the rain will bring to follow their trail, but unless they find the start of that trail before the rains wash it away they're going to struggle.

Once the weather breaks the pack starts circling outwards, looking for any signs. Whisper, the female mentor for Nine laughs softly as she watches them; her tributes got well clear of the area before the rains set in and have stuck to the harder rock areas since to avoid leaving a trail. When they do pass over the looser ground, Darshan swipes away their tracks with a chunk of plastiglass he is carrying.

By the time the early evening mandatory viewing begins the Career pack have succeeded in walking off in entirely the wrong direction, following the trail of a wounded rat-mutt with a dragging hind paw.

Shortly after the anthem plays, Elmilla from Seven decides to venture from her hiding place, glaring at the now-clear sky as she sucks water from her dripping orange jump-suit sleeves. She had spent a good amount of time dulling the bright orange by rubbing in dirt mixed with her own spit, effort entirely wasted after the rainfall washed most of the dirt out. A light goes on in her mind when she steps in a muddy puddle and she grimaces as she drags each of her limbs through the presumably cold mud, dulling the orange once more.

The cameras continue to follow her as she wanders away to the west, still shivering occasionally as she nervously approaches each new vehicle heap with silent steps, circling the area and peering cautiously inside before moving on. I'm not sure whether she's looking for tributes to kill, a safe place to spend the night or if she just doesn't want anyone sneaking up behind her. As the partial moon rises it throws the metal heaps into a twisted mixture of black-on-black shadows, the occasional glints of metal or refractive paint practically glowing.

She passes a string of three busted train carriages with less caution, cursing softly as she stubs her toe on a loose rock. She glances around, scared for a few seconds that someone is nearby and has heard her, then decides she is safe and continues on her night-time wandering. Behind her a dark head and shoulders poke up from the open roof of the front train carriage, watching her retreating back. Hawker Scott from Eleven, up until now something of an outside favorite, decides to make his first big move in the Games and begins trailing the girl from Seven.

His stealth skills are no better than his quarry's and it doesn't take Elmilla long to realize someone is following her. She breaks into a nervous scurry, which actually makes her easier to track as the sounds carry well on the cooler night air. Hawker, who is limping slightly, a long, jagged wound on his leg still crudely bound by the blood-stained sleeve of his jumpsuit, takes some time to catch up with her, but stays on her trail for nearly an half an hour. Eventually, tired by the relentless pursuit, Elmilla decides to try hiding and breaks out into a full sprint to the nearest large heap of cars, burrowing in amongst the metal and glass wreckage.

Unfortunately for her, she's not so far ahead of her pursuer that Hawker misses the sounds. The sturdy boy from Eleven approaches the car-pile cautiously, circling it once from a healthy distance before stepping closer to poke around. He spots a few orange threads torn from Elmilla's jumpsuit, glowing brightly in the moonlight, and steps back to think before swinging his axe in a swift overhand arc and driving deep into the rusted metal car-frame. The girl from Seven screams, revealing her exact position and Hawker swings again, this time catching a chunk of her left calf muscle with his blade. His third blow just scrapes the side of her ribcage as she tries to roll away, eliciting another scream, though the repeated strikes against the metal surface seem to have dulled the axe-blade somewhat.

Hawker hooks the head of the axe into one of the deep cleaved wounds in the metal roof and hauls backwards, trying to open the car like you might peel the skin from an orange. Elmilla, realizing she's out of options, belly-crawls through her only remaining escape—the other window of the half-crushed car, deliberately burying herself further under the pile. The cameras lose her as she disappears into the shadows, gritting her teeth in pain as she drags her heavily bleeding leg behind her. By the time Hawker peels open enough of the car roof to see easily inside, she has vanished deep under the metal scrap-heap. The boy from Eleven tries half-heartedly to drag the ruined car body aside to follow her, but lacks the strength to move the heavy metal base frame.

He steps back scowling, and prowls slow circles around the heap for another few hours before he realizes that there's no way his quarry will come out any time soon. He probably could wait her out, but that would leave him out in the open, at risk from the Career pack or any other tributes that might want to fight him. Slowly, reluctantly Hawker backs away, retreating to an old double-layer bus hull about a hundred yards away to rest the remaining night.

The nanocameras, which are nearly invisible to the naked eye and designed to follow each tribute using miniature hover-drone technology that Beetee and I helped develop about six years back, struggle to get a good look at the girl from Seven, now burrowed right to the centre of her scrap-heap. The girl's photo on one of the smaller side-screens remains colored, so she's still alive according to her tracker data. After a few minutes, Olivia, the grandmotherly female victor from Seven hauls herself from her comfortable armchair and meanders over to the private mentor booths at the rear of the room. Inside, each mentor has access to two different nanocamera feeds of their tribute, as well as their basic statistics from the tracker-monitor that is injected in their arm. I doubt there's any visual—if there was it would be shown on the big screen right now—but she might be able to get an idea of the damage from the girl's heart-rate and temperature.

Not that Olivia can do anything to help; any sponor gifts she tried to send, assuming she even has the money, would require Elmilla to crawl back out from her hiding place. Also, any parachutes she sent now would undoubtedly be seen and claimed by Hawker long before her tribute had a chance to reach them. After a few minutes the screen does flicker over to the black-on-black view from one of the nanocameras, though the only thing discernible is a slight movement. Probably Elmilla attempting to bandage up the nasty wound in her leg.

Figuring the action is done for the night, I take the opportunity to catch a decent few hours' sleep in my actual bed. I'm not at all surprised when Beetee, who joins me for a quick breakfast the next morning, informs me that he has been summoned to a meeting with several producers and the head of the company that designs the nanocameras. They want new, improved nanotechnology that can see in the dark and is easier for the Gamemakers to control, and they want it yesterday.

Beetee makes a few pointed remarks about having tried to convince them to add night vision to the original models, but was overruled by the argument that the current mini-cameras that are generally placed on firm structures pre-Games would be sufficient. Apparently none of the Gamemakers considered the possibility of tributes hiding deep inside the scrap heaps when designing the camera layout. I suggest that they attach a night-vision mini (about the size of a finger-nail) to some controllable beetle-mutt and use that for their short-term fix, which he promises to pass on should the topic arise. In return I promise to join him if I should suddenly find myself free as I know such meetings will likely continue for the next few days, and leave him poring over a handheld that he was given with the technical specs for the current devices.

~xXx~

As it turns out, I probably could have joined Beetee at the meetings when we have one of the rare nearly-eventless days of the Hunger Games. Elmilla remains in hiding, her occasional movement visible in the darkness. The Gamemakers provide regular updates on her vitals, noting her rapid and irregular heart-rate, a sign that she has lost, and continues to lose a lot of blood. Hawker is still hovering in the area, watching from the open upper floor of the bus he's claimed as he treats his wounds with the medicines Tolby sent him and eating up the last of his meagre food supplies.

He had some popularity with the sponsors even from the pre-games, and I know from a brief conversation with Seeder that there has been a steady trickle of money incoming since. Chaff, who trades off mentoring with Tolby every other year, has been out and about extolling the strengths of their boy while Seeder and Tolby manage the official duties. Another advantage we in Three lack.

As the late afternoon sun sets I see a stocky black beetle scurry around the edge of Elmilla's car-pile. It disappears into the darkness and a few minutes later we get our first decent footage of the girl from Seven. The lighting is slightly off, but her face is sheet-like and the bundled orange cloth around her left leg is fully stained a dark red-brown. Her every breath sounds ragged and her eyes are unfocused and half-closed. Between the anthem at sunset and the time I go to bed, she makes several half-hearted attempts at crawling free of her dark cavern, watched now by her own personal beetle-camera. None of those attempts end up lasting more than a few minutes of pained crawling and she returns to her curled position to huddle a few hours longer. After her fourth try at moving she passes out and the tightly-knotted bloodstained cloth, snagged on a protrusion, pulls a little loose.

Her cannon sounds around half-past three the next morning, waking me with its boom from the television I left playing as I dozed off. After double-checking that it's not Antimony in trouble I fumble for the off-switch and roll back the other way, dragging a pillow over my head to muffle the street-noise that still thrums from the party crowd.

I catch Beetee at the breakfast table once more, looking smug and scribbling down calculations. The considerations for miniaturization aren't linear—a fact I know from my own investigations—and Beetee has spent many years designing work-arounds and adjustments to allow such devices to function. He abandons his half-eaten food and hurries out the door, happy enough to be the center of attention and admiration for his specific skillset, leaving me alone once more to watch over Antimony.

The fifth day of the Games drags on once again with very little action. We get several replays of Hawker from Eleven watching the hovercraft drag free Elmilla's body from under the scrap heap, his teeth gritted as he fights to maintain a neutral expression for the cameras. After a softly-muttered conversation with himself he shakes his head firmly and sits himself back down into his bus-seat bed.

Claudius Templesmith brings in a panel of experts to discuss Hawker's actions and their opinions of his motivations and chances of success. I take the opportunity to hole up in my private cabin with a large plate of choice pastries and fruits, one eye on Antimony's private feed, while I attempt to lose myself in a new novel Gloria brought me. My Escort drags me out twice over the course of the afternoon, once for a moderately well-off sponsor meeting (another old lady who seems bothered by dear little Antimony eating rats), a second time for a ten-minute interview (with cards she has pre-written for me about Antimony's fighting spirit).

I just about get everything out without too much stammering and scurry back into hiding, where Antimony is demonstrating her 'fighting spirit' by haphazardly launching sling-rocks at a circling vulture. The large bird is high enough to be easily clear of her range, dipping and wheeling every now and then to keep her trying.

Axel makes a few snide comments about her lack of strength and her wasting their ammunition, and she replies by pointing out that a circling bird high in the late afternoon sky is likely to attract unwanted attention from other tributes. He shrugs, unconvinced, but after ten minutes of continued circling, decides that my girl maybe has a point. The vulture, clearly a mutt of some sort, makes one of its regular dips a little closer, bringing it easily inside Axel's sling range. The boy from Six throws true enough to clip its wing and it shrieks loudly as it flutters off-balance. Axel's second stone whizzes just over the bird's head, his third smacks one of its clawed feet. The vulture shrieks again, definitely trying to draw attention as it flutters awkwardly upwards to resume circling. Obviously the stones did enough damage that it doesn't keep it up for long and swoops away to the south-west, continuing its warbling cry.

It eventually soars over the heads of the Career pack, swooping at Valaria from Two, who earlier that day killed another of the birds with a well-thrown knife. She swears loudly, her hand dropping immediately to one of the knife hilts at her belt, though by the time she has the blade in hand the vulture is well-past them, heading towards the setting sun.

"Bastard buzzards," she mutters again, running her hands over several partially-healed talon-scrapes on her forehead from her earlier encounter. The tributes from Four snicker—over the last day or so we've had several glimpses of in-alliance arguments, mostly the kids from Four being pushed around by the others. Jethro, the male tribute from Two, ignores his laughing allies and watches the black bird silhouette disappearing into the fading light.

"That one was injured," he says softly, turning to face the other five. West, a bit north would you say? Probably one of the pairs."

The boy from Four rolls his eyes at this pronouncement—he's been mocking Jethro ever since the boy from Two's failed tracking attempt a few days before, and I've been hoping it might boil over to a pack-melee since. The others nod though and, once they finish eating from their much-depleted rations, pick up a steady march towards our alliance's fortress.

After a few hours of watching their rate of travel and slightly off-angle direction, I guess that the Careers won't get close enough for the fight to happen tonight. More likely the Gamemakers will send another vulture or two to circle over Antimony and Axels' heads tomorrow morning to point the pack in the more northerly direction. Just in case I call young Portia to hunt me down a fresh blanket and pillow as the night sets in, and set up on one of the more comfortable couches in the Viewing Hall, ready to respond immediately if necessary. I drift in and out of the edges of conversations, dozing, listening to Portia's tales of her mother's tattoo parlor, letting Gloria prattle on about nail treatments and skin-lotions.

Kaylee drops by for a brief chat—she disappeared yesterday morning, most likely to take a hit, but it seems to have been a small one as she's relatively coherent. She does tell me that Dominic is currently finger-painting in their apartment, still well and truly high, and that I'll likely be fronting the inevitable media alone in the morning. Vivianus tuts about this, his expression pained and, once Kaylee stumbles off to bed, pointedly suggests that he'll be applying for a transfer to a new district the moment one becomes available. He apparently tried to talk the young Escort from Twelve into trading after Haymitch drunkenly hurled all through her newest wig, but the girl decided that one alcoholic was less difficult to manage than two morphling addicts.

Eventually the room settles into a quiet lull as the Career pack settles down to sleep about a mile south of Antimony and Axel's camp. Victors, Escorts and Games staff head out, either to beds or to various parties leaving me alone in the large room barring the avox restocking the drinks table. I huddle down under my blankets and drift off to the buzzing murmur of another 'experts' panel discussing the inevitable Career-alliance breakdown and the expected fight with our alliance on the morrow.

~xXx~

At exactly half past nine in the morning a pair of vultures wing their way from the northern edge of the arena to circle high above our pairs' 'fortress'. Axel spots them first, scowling as the birds wheel well above his throwing range. He climbs back inside their topmost car and nudges Antimony awake with his foot.

"Buzzards are back," he says bluntly as she drowsily slaps at his leg. "Volunteer pack has to be close."

Antimony sits sharply upright, hissing as she stretches out her cramped arm. "We're as ready as we can be," she mutters, nodding as Axel hands her half of the energy bar the pair had been hoarding since the first day. It's the last of their food, and they'd gone without the day before (I didn't want to risk sending them a parachute once the Careers were looking their way to give the pack exact directions and before that it didn't seem urgent). They have nearly one full bottle of water, having diligently collected the rainfall the afternoon before and pass it back and forth sparingly.

It doesn't take long for the Careers to spot the Gamemakers' signal and turn back to the north. Axel sees them first, the bright orange jumpsuits vibrant against the reflective metal and gray-brown dirt. Our tributes blend into the shadows surprisingly well, their orange clothing heavily coated in thick black engine grease and dirt, but as they are perched at the top of the largest scrap-heap in a mile radius, it's not hard for the Careers to guess where they're hiding even without the helpful vultures shrieking and looping high overhead.

The pack closes in cautiously on the mound, the boy from Two sending the pair from Four to go check the closest other single vehicles nearby just in case there's some sort of ambush planned while the four of them circle around, ensuring there are no back-door escapes for our tributes. Luckily for our pair, the only one of the pack using a ranged weapon is Valaria, and her knives won't carry that high with much accuracy or force. Desire pokes around the base and comes up with a fist-sized chunk of metal which he lobs hard at the top car. It clangs off the side, the noise echoing across the flat plains and sending the circling vultures fluttering away with a final screech.

Antimony, whose head was only a few inches away from the impact on the inside of the car, scuttles backwards, her finger in her ear and twists, probably trying to clear the ringing sound.

"Nice place you've got here," Desire hollers up from the base of the scrap heap, "Must be luxurious compared to your hovels back home."

I will our pair to remain silent—if the pack thinks there's more than one or two of them, they might be more cautious in their attack and give our tributes time to fight them off. Antimony bites her lip quiet, but Axel raises himself on his knees and yells back, "Why don't you come on up, I'll show you 'round?"

"Oh we're coming up all right," Valaria calls out from the other side of the scrap heap. "It's just the two of them," she adds to her allies. "Dumb lump from Six and the skinny bitch from Three. Shouldn't be any trouble"

She steps forward eagerly, eyes scanning the scrap-pile for an easy way up, one knife already clasped firmly in her left hand. She starts climbing up the left-hand side. Around to the front of the pile, Jethro snorts and cautiously tests his weight on the first car hood, hooking his sword-arm around a convenient bar to haul himself up.

Opal from One looks less certain and calls out, "Tell you what, you two come down from there and we'll give you a five minute running start."

Antimony and Axel glance at one another and shake their heads, before turning back to face their respective windows. Unfortunately the cramped space limits their ability to use their slings properly, so their first projectiles are comparatively lacking in force.

Axel's third hurled rock catches Opal's shoulder as the girl from One tentatively begins her climb up the heap, spinning her off balance. She falls against the rusted metal, grazing her arm and chin with a squeal. Antimony starts launching her long metal darts out the other window. The first misses completely but her second throw makes the boy from Two duck and fumble as his sword slips into a crack between two cars. He stops to retrieve it, giving her a good few seconds to deal with Valaria.

The girl from Two hurls her first knife once she gets two cars up into the stack, making Antimony duck back inside for cover. My girl responds with a blind dart throw that clatters about a foot away from Valaria's leg and bounces off a curved car roof to the dirt below.

A shout from the front of the Viewing Hall coincides with a switch of the camera angle and we all watch in shock as Axel leans out of his window to wind up and hurl his bolas at the boy from One. Desire tries to duck, but Axel's throw was low and the handsome boy from One inadvertently drops his head into the path of the flying metal. There's a dull thunk and a small burst of blood as his right eye ruptures, but it's the other piece that does the real damage, smacking into the join between his jaw and his neck, just below his left ear.

"NO!" Felix yells, slamming his fist on the table in frustration as his tribute collapses, not yet dead (according to his tracker), but certainly out of the fight.

The camera cuts back to the other side of the fight where one of Antimony's thrown darts apparently found their mark. Valaria drops down a level, back to the second layer of cars, clutching at her chest, which has six inches of metal sticking out between her collarbone and the top of her ribcage, the glass tip fully imbedded in her flesh. It's certainly not a lethal wound, but it's clearly impairing her throwing arm as she wrenches the dart free and tosses both it and her second-last knife with her off-hand, cursing as they both clatter uselessly several inches away from Antimony's hastily withdrawn head.

Jethro doesn't seem to be faring any better, having retrieved his sword only to put his foot through one of Antimony's carefully prepared leather drop-traps. He roars as his leg is savaged by the sharp spikes and tries to pull free, twisting sideways as he catches himself on an apparently stable car bumper. Unfortunately for him, it's one that Axel tampered with and the bar swings outward with a metallic shriek that grates the ears, loosing a stream of carefully stacked metal pieces onto his head. Jethro loses his grip on both the bar and the sword and drops down four feet, landing awkwardly on his injured leg. It buckles at the ankle with a meaty pop and he bellows again, hands flailing to get a grip on something to hold himself up.

Antimony launches her last dart at the girl from Two, forcing Valaria back to the ground, then picks up a heavy steel bar to use as a club and turns towards Jethro's snarling. The boy from Two has managed to get a tenuous grip on the wheel bearing of the top car and is trying to drag himself upright. If he manages to get inside the car, I doubt Antimony or Axel will have much chance in a hand-to-hand fight, especially with the girl from One keeping Axel distracted.

Antimony sees the opportunity as Jethro's dark hair creeps over the lower edge of the window-frame. She hesitates for just a moment, before shaking her head and tightening her grip. Biting down on the fear and the voice in her head trying to tell her that this might be wrong, just as I did in the moments before I decided to sink my knife into Jasper's neck.

Small as she is, Antimony positions herself so that she can put all her torso into the swing and leans out of the car window enough to smash the heavy metal bar across the front of Jethro's face. The boy from Two lunges sideways, trying to pin her arm, but his injured leg fails him and he practically falls into her second swing. Dazed, he slides down about a foot until his orange jumpsuit snags on the sharp corner of a truck bed and his uninjured leg wedges into the fork between a car-front and side-mirror. He tries to catch his balance once again, but Antimony has gained enough confidence to climb out of her hiding place and she balances easily on the car hood as she smashes her metal club across the top of his head with a full overhand swing. She readjusts her balance against the vibrations, easily sidestepping his clumsy grab at her ankle and brings the bar down again. And again. And again.

After the ninth or tenth blow she falls backwards, sitting on the hood of the top car as the body of the male tribute from Two tumbles away from her. Eyes wide, breathing heavy, her arms trembling from her grip on her weapon, she turns to see the other side of the fight. Only there is no fight any more.

The pair from Four, clearly not liking the way things were going with both the fight and their alliance, are heading back towards the south, each carrying one of the larger supply packs that the tributes from Two had shed before the fighting. Opal from One is hobbling after them; from the commentary on screen and in the room around me, I deduce she also fell afoul of the carefully prepared traps and decided not to fight on after the deaths of two of her allies.

The only one still trying is Valaria from Two, who has just a single knife left to her. She is facing off against Axel, who climbed down to the ground to meet her, now holding his own metal bar up defensively, ready to knock away any thrown blades aimed in his direction. Not that any are likely; the wound in the girl's shoulder seems to have sufficiently impeded her left arm, and she's in no physical state to hold off even an average-built boy like Axel unarmed.

Even so the boy from Six waits for Antimony to clamber down behind the girl from Two, hovering far enough back that she's no easy target for the fighter. Valaria lunges at her anyway and Antimony skitters back out of reach, swinging wildly at the air between them with her bar. The girl from Two turns sharply, anticipating Axel's approach from behind, and lunges out with her knife hoping to catch him off-guard. Instead the blade clatters into his bar, like Antimony, held defensively before him. He grabs her good wrist to prevent her from striking again and jams the top of his bar up under her chin.

Antimony hurries forwards and slams her own bar against the back of Valaria's legs, though her strength seems drained as the blows have no noticeable effect. Valaria kicks up sharply and Antimony doubles over, winded, her makeshift club rolling from her grip.

Axel shoves hard, sending the girl from Two tumbling backwards over Antimony's crouched form, and, using his grip on her wrist for leverage, pins her to the ground with his own body. He leans down on the bloody chest-wound caused by Antimony's dart, making the girl writhe and growl low in her throat.

Valaria makes one last desperate lunge, partially toppling Axel's position and almost getting the knife-point into his ribs before he lashes back, slamming her wrist into the ground and using his knees to simultaneously pin the blade and wedge his bar across her throat until she twitches unconscious. He holds her there for several minutes, not trusting her not to be feigning, then sharply jerks the knife from her trapped hand and slashes it across her throat, taking several tries to make the cut deep enough to kill.

Trembling, spattered with mingled blood, dirt and sweat, he sits back to look his ally in the face as the cannon booms three times. Antimony staggers upright, still gasping for breath, and stares back at him, shaking her head wordlessly as they help each-other away from the body and start examining their own wounds.

"We did it," I hear Antimony whisper as she pokes a wide, shallow scrape along her forearm. "We actually beat them."

"Half of them," Axel corrects her, his voice croaking on the last word.

I pull myself upright off the couch and hurry to the cabin to send a full gallon of water—they'll need it to clean up and prevent infection as much as to drink. I watch the money drain from our account, only to be replaced almost instantly. I blink. Before my eyes, the number jumps again. And again. Finally, the sponsors are interested in our underdog alliance.

Shaking my own head, I return to the Viewing Hall and tap a glowering Terentius Garcia on the shoulder. "I…your boy was…"

"Useless," he finishes for me with a wry smile. "Beaten to death by a girl half his size. I'll never live it down."

He nods at me and mutters, "Appreciated. Best of luck," before standing to face the cameras. I look around for either Kaylee or Dom, and when neither are apparent, I go make the apologies to Rhea and Felix. The older woman from Two nods sharply at my stammered attempt and stalks across the room to where the District Two Escort is fussing over Terentius' shirt collar. Felix is a little friendlier and tips his drink in my direction as I approach.

"No offence, but I'm hoping Opal comes to her senses and heads back to obliterate them. If she'd just stuck around she could have had them both you know."

I nod. The Careers would probably also have won the fight if they'd waited for the pair from Four to re-join them before starting their climb. But that's the Hunger Games: a whole string of "what-ifs" and "could-have-beens" that decide who lives to wear the crown.

"If she doesn't make it, I'm cheering for your girl," Felix informs me after his tosses back his drink. "Skinny little thing beating in soldier boy's head like that. That's real spirit."

He claps my shoulder and heads for the drinks table, though I see his Escort catch him half-way and redirect him towards the front doors. I groan as I realize how much more media time I'm also going to have to do. As soon as Caesar Flickerman is finished with the interviews of the mentors of the fallen tributes, I (and probably Dom, or at least Kaylee, depending on which of them is sufficiently coherent) will be pushed center-stage to explain how our determined duo faced off against the entire career pack and won. Hating myself a little for imagining how much easier it would be for me if Antimony had just died, I head back to my cabin and start writing lines.


	9. Chapter 9

The replays of the bloody fight are shown several times over the next two days, much welcomed action after nearly a week of boredom. Various Capitol analysts, and even some of the Career victors are brought in to give their opinions on how the fight turned out the way it did, and what it will mean for the rest of the Games. Most of them chalk it down to Axel's perfect bolas toss, taking out Desire from the get-go, and he is now, along with the pair from Four and Hawker from Eleven, one of the four favorites to win.

The boy from One was technically still alive after the head blow, according to his tracker, though the data suggested he was brain-dead with no chance of recovery, so the Gamemaker fired his cannon anyway. This apparently leads to a further internal debate about tying the cannons directly to the tributes' trackers rather than manually firing them. Or so I hear from Plutarch Heavensbee, who drops by to chat the following morning. One of his old university friends is currently one of the junior Gamemakers and he himself is considering taking up an offer for the new junior position that is likely to be opening next year, assuming it doesn't interfere with his current workload. I let him prattle on as always while I pass him what little work I've done for their company, reminding him once again that I'm not really available for business while I still have a tribute alive.

"Yes, of course," he says as the morning screens show us another replay of Axel's final beat-down of the girl from Two. "But not for much longer, I should think. The boy is going to need to untether himself soon if he wants to keep up his chances. Not that either of them would be much value to me as victors."

He smiles condescendingly as he taps my notebook. "I mean, it's clear that neither of them has your brains or ingenuity. No, he will be a trophy celebrity and nothing more."

I decide not to point out that Antimony had nearly as much to do with winning the fight as Axel did, and that writing her off isn't entirely fair. I might need Plutarch's sponsor money later, especially if our pair do split, and he tends to become deliberately obtuse when people argue with him.

The sponsor funds we already have for the pair are enough to provide our tributes with more basic medical supplies and some decent food, which is well-received by the pair on-screen. They set about repairing their traps and re-collecting their used weapons, making improvements as they go. This is the first time since my sister Balia that a tribute from Three has made the final eight and Beetee manages to pull himself away from his camera miniaturization project to help support me with my media duties.

I don't know what exactly has been going on back in Three since we left, but Antimony's family present themselves better than I would have expected. Their accents and ill-fitting clothing mark them as obviously poor, and there is no disguising her father Solen's severe arm injuries or her mother Dona's hacking cough and sullen dislike of whoever is asking the interview questions. But her siblings make an effort to speak about Antimony's resilience, and also her ability to work with others (like her ally Axel) to achieve unexpected ends. They make no mention of these ends involving illegal scrounging of Scrapyard materials and ad-hoc black market electronics sales.

I'm just glad that they are willing to talk to the Capitol reporters without spitting on them, or trying to start a riot. I do notice that our mayor is noticeably absent from making any comment; undoubtedly he is still hoping that Antimony gets her head smashed in so that he won't have to deal with an upstart lower-city victor. After all, he barely tolerates me, and I'm middle class and generally keep my opinions to myself.

Our pair gets a little more relative screen-time as the days roll on, though the favourable commentary is directed mostly towards Axel. Like Antimony, his family is clearly poor, but his barely older sister is reasonably pretty and quickly becomes the film crew's go-to person in their district to answer questions about her little brother.

A well-timed interview captures the live reactions from District One around midday of day eight, when a skirmish between Hawker and the injured Opal leaves the girl from One dead and the boy from Eleven badly wounded. Opal's mother manages a stoic demeanour and praises her daughter for dying for the greater cause of the nation of Panem. Her father sticks to solemn nods and rapid swallows and blinking, holding back his emotions as best he can. I hope that they decide whatever promotion or advancement they were hoping for by encouraging their daughter to volunteer is worth it to them.

The boy from Nine appears to have become somewhat emotionally attached to his district partner, and she tolerates his initial physical advances, though blocks anything further than cuddling for warmth. Both of them have the darker coloring of the factory workers from their district (the tributes from Nine are as likely to try and kill one another as to ally, depending on which factions they are from). As three of District Nine's victors come from the field-workers and the fourth is merchant-bred, there's a sense of ill-will and distrust that emanates from their home interviews. The relatives of the tributes don't quite go as far as suggesting that their mentors generally don't bother helping tributes who aren't of the same ethnic group, but it's easy enough to hear between the blatantly scripted lines that Darshan's father delivers to the cameras. Neither family seems entirely happy with the "brewing romance" storyline either; tribute romances of any flavor tend to end tragically in the Hunger Games for at least one, if not both parties.

There's also some spirited back-and-forth between the families of the tributes from Four as the two remaining Career kids decide to split off in different directions. They agree to not actively hunt one another unless they reach the final two and share a stilted handshake before walking away to the north-east and south-west, respectively.

The crews hurry to make it out to Eleven before Hawker expires. The sturdy boy from Eleven has several badly infected wounds and is clearly dehydrated and disoriented. His loved ones provide curt, nervous commentary about his strong back and good work ethic as they watch him lurching from place to place, staring plaintively at the sky, praying for rain. When it does fall that night he struggles to crawl out and collect it, and ends up drenched and shivering as the moon rises and the temperature drops.

I watch Tolby, waddling in and out of his cabin as he alternatively consults with Chaff and Seeder, then returns to try calling new sponsors, obviously to no avail. Meanwhile my own tributes continue to eat and drink steadily, their fortress intact, their weapons replenished and refined. Antimony managed to re-collect all but two of her darts, one of those having the tip snapped off in Valaria's retrieved body. Axel has improved his club by tying on a several two-inch spikes and has constructed a second bolas, ready for another round. We're still receiving a steady stream of sponsor calls (primarily for Axel) and my good friend Diya plants herself at the District Six table to help babysit Kaylee (who is clearly suffering from withdrawals; Six's tributes rarely make it this long). We and they are doing all they can to survive for now.

~xXx~

Hawker succumbs to his injuries in the late morning of the tenth day of the Games. It's unclear whether it was infection, dehydration or blood loss that finished him, but the kill is credited to Opal from One post-mortem.

That afternoon the tributes from Nine show a less romantic side when they encounter Coral from Four. Darshan distracts the Career girl, giving his knife-wielding partner time to sneak up behind and stab Coral in the back. The first blow isn't immediately fatal and Afifa yells at her frozen district partner to finish the job before snatching the second blade from Darshan's trembling hands and driving it deep into Coral's eye.

It's a bit of a shock for some of the viewers—as with our alliance, most people considered the male tribute the stronger chance, especially since Afifa isn't any bigger than Antimony. The decisive ruthlessness of the girl from Nine earns them a new bout of attention and sponsors and I silently commiserate as I watch Whisper and Robin scowling when their Escort drags them off for another round of interviews.

The boy from Four manages to kill himself with his own stupidity late the next morning, when he climbs to the top of a tall scrap-pile to look around and loses his footing. He falls about six feet onto a sharp metal corner which dents his skull as effectively as Axel's bolas did to the boy from One. Just like that we are down to four tributes left and before I can start jotting down likely strategies the Gamemakers will use to push the two alliances together, Axel makes his move.

Antimony is sitting on the hood of their car, chewing on the last scrap of jerky I sent them as she stares off into the distance, squinting against the nearly midday sun. Her eyes are glazed with an ambivalence I still recall—the sensation that all life before the arena was a dream, and that the harsh reality of the Games is all that she can remember. She turns and nods at Axel as he climbs out of the car to join her and asks her, "Who do you reckon that was?"

"Boy from Four. Can't remember his name," she answers after a moment's thought. "Nines wouldn't turn on each other, no point right? Not with us still out here. Only one dead. Has to be him."

Axel grunts his agreement, twirling his spiked club while thinking. Out of nowhere he leans forward and slams the hefty weapon into Antimony's skull. I bolt upright from my chair, clenching helplessly at the air as my girl drops, her scrawny form bouncing awkwardly, painfully down the car pile. I hold my breath, waiting for the cannon to fire, but it doesn't sound. Instead there's a loud scream—a girl's scream, full of pain and terror and bitter betrayal—and Antimony regains enough control to slide the rest of the way to the ground without incurring further severe injury.

Axel bellows something incoherent and charges down after her, nearly losing his own balance in his hurry as Antimony wobbles to her feet and manages five steps before she promptly collapses back to all-fours. There are two visible bloody gouges on her neck and shoulder blade, and probably several more hidden in her matted dark hair, as well as what damage came from the sheer force of the blow. She tries a second time to stand and dry-retches, her eyes out of focus as she manages a weak crawl forwards. She almost reaches a protruding bumper bar to drag herself upright when her former ally catches her and winds up to swing again. She manages to duck his first blow, her left hand scrabbling to get a hold of the bumper and regain some balance, her right clutching her mouth as she dry-heaves again. As Axel steps directly behind her, positioned so that she has no escape, and draws his arm up across his body for what should be the killing strike, I see her twist suddenly, a flash of metal in her left hand.

At first I think she's managed to rip off a piece of the car, but as the two blows strike near-simultaneously, I can see it's one of her darts, one that she'd previously failed to retrieve. There's a meaty thud as Axel's club solidly connects with the right side of her skull, followed half a second later by a softer splat. The sound of her dart piecing the gap between two of Axel's ribs and sinking deep into his torso.

He stumbles back, she collapses forward and the room turns to watch the tribute photos, to see if one or both turn gray. I hurry to our cabin to check the tracker data for Antimony's vitals. I can see her heart rate spiking, which isn't a bad sign I guess, as it suggests she isn't imminently verging on death. Our Escort Gloria scurries in to join me and announces after several minutes of watching Antimony's heart-rate jump from roughly twenty-second bursts of high activity to worrying intervals of lesser magnitude, that she will contact a medical expert to help translate.

As it turns out she doesn't need to; Claudius Templesmith already has one on-screen beside him, filling a third of the vision while the rest shows our potentially dying tributes. Out of nowhere, Axel's cannon fires. I know it is his because it happens half-way through Antimony's fifth sharp spike, which the doctor on screen interprets as some sort of seizure. He doesn't sound certain whether or not she will recover from the heavy blows, but says he can't rule it out and has seen people survive similar or worse injuries with minimal long term effects. Right now her bigger worry is the short term—unconscious and helpless in the arena, bleeding freely from multiple lesions, he suggests that unless she wakes in the next few hours, she will probably not survive the night, irrespective of whether the pair from Nine come after her.

As for Axel, the tip of the dart apparently severed his coronary artery. The weak force of the strike from Antimony was aided by his own forward motion, which would have driven the point deeper than expected. Internal bleeding would have caused near instant unconsciousness and death within five minutes, apparently.

They joke about him being right on schedule and her showing that district folk must have thicker skulls than those of the Capitol (as they don't need to do as much thinking), and appear to settle in to a more in-depth discussion of head-wounds when the camera shifts to the pair from District Nine. It's not uncommon to see the reactions of the other tributes, so I think nothing of it and start scanning the list of available sponsor gifts for something affordable that might help Antimony recover if she does wake.

I don't look up until the second cannon fires, jerking me from my search back to reality. The girl from Nine, quarrelling with her district partner about whether they should actively hunt down the last other tribute, or whether they were better staying put and waiting to see what came next, ended the discussion with a vicious stab to her district partner's turned back. As with the girl from Four, her wickedly sharp blade sinks easily into her foe's abdominal organs and she pushes him forward, letting him crawl away from her, tears streaming down his face.

She shows no emotion at all as she follows him cautiously, hovering indecisively for a moment before leaping on him and jamming the second blade into his throat to hasten the process. We get another dozen replays of it over the next five hours in-between shots of Afifa, her eyes wild with victors' fever, stalking steadily towards a distant glimmer of light on the horizon. I'm not sure how exactly the Gamemakers contrive to continually bounce the afternoon sun off the tall metal scrap-heaps, guiding the girl from Nine to her remaining foe. All I can do is wait and hope that Antimony recovers enough to fight back before Afifa finds her.

~xXx~

Despite Afifa's steady, guided progress, the Gamemakers decide to hurry her along as the afternoon shadows grow long. The girl from Nine is just about past one of the larger scrap-heaps when a clatter of metal causes her to whirl and throw one of her two blades jerkily in the direction of the sound. It clangs from an old train wheel and spins away into the heap, skimming the hair off the large rat-mutt that startled her. It pads forward, claws scrabbling slightly on the refined surface as it prowls slowly, menacingly towards her, over-large teeth bared. Another joins it, and another.

She gets the hint and begins running in stops and starts, slowing when her breath fails her, until she passes the next scrap-pile, where another small swarm of rats starts her off again. She's just a little less than a mile away from Antimony when one of the over-eager rats leaps from one ill-balanced car to another, triggering a booming tumble of rusted cars. Afifa squeals and sprints for cover, barely getting clear of the metal avalanche, her left ankle turning sharply as she stumbles to a halt two feet past where the furthest car lands. She sits up, her left arm grazed from wrist to elbow and numbly cuts a strip from her mostly-ruined jumpsuit trousers to bandage the shallow wound.

Something touches my shoulder and I squeal and nearly jump a foot in the air, my fingers scrabbling to get purchase on my attacker's arm, until I see the fluorescent green of Gloria's three-inch fingernails. Stammering an apology, I follow her as she tries to subtly pull me backwards, towards our private cabin. As soon as I'm inside she drags the door shut and turns to the screens, which show Antimony stirring. The minutes drag on—fifteen, twenty—but finally our girl blinks herself back awake and fumbles her way into a sitting position. Almost immediately she grabs at her head, her right eye nearly swollen shut, her neck and upper body bloody and battered.

"Painkillers," Gloria says, her fingers dancing over the list of sponsor gift prices which, as we watch, jump sharply in value. "Hmm, we'll need to be quick. Caffeine tablets? They're cheaper and I read somewhere that they work the same in the short term."

"Water," I suggest, leaning over my escort's shoulder to scroll back up the list. "Water first. And food. Cheap. I'll call…call…"

"Your techy people, yes. After all your hard work for them they can pay for some pills."

She smiles and taps in the order as I grab the phone, dialling Plutarch Heavensbee's private line from memory. He answers on the fifth ring, his tone mildly annoyed. "Wiress, lovely to hear from you. Dirkin has been wanting a word with you all week. I expect you'll be free to stop over tomorrow morning? I doubt the Gamemakers will drag this on much longer."

I grit my teeth and take three deep breaths before answering. "Painkillers. Or caffeine. Maybe. If yes, then yes."

He takes a few moments to think about it, as always, though I doubt he'll be so stingy as to refuse me completely.

"Ten thousand. Fifteen if you really can't raise the rest from your other benefactors. Dirkin will meet you at Colbray Street at nine."

I glance at the sponsor gift screen, on which Gloria has highlighted our preferred options. Two caffeine pills are currently going for twelve thousand. I know I won't get a better offer from Plutarch and I'll need to hurry before the Gamemakers jump the prices again. If I'm quick and lucky, I might even be able to get the painkillers.

"Nine tomorrow," I confirm and he assures me he'll transfer the money forthwith.

I let him hang up on me, then immediately dial Luda Masterson, who is less wealthy, but also far less tempting to hit.

Within ten minutes I have enough for the caffeine pills, plus a cold-pack and another bottle of water. Antimony, who managed to numbly crawl to the first parachute and subsequently spilled over half the first bottle trying to fill her mouth, twitches in shock as the second gift lands at her feet.

She takes the pills as soon as she sees them and pokes at the cold-pack experimentally before holding it to her still-bloody face. Her eyes are still somewhat glazed, arena apathy likely combined with concussion, possibly even brain damage, and she makes no attempt to eat the small energy bar or drink from the second bottle.

I sit back in my chair and watch as the small girl from the poorest part of Three rocks back and forth, waiting for her final foe to approach and end her misery. Just as I've given up hope, Antimony pulls away the cold pack, wincing as her bloody skin peels slightly, partially stuck to the surface. Unsteadily, painfully slowly, she pulls herself upright and, leaning heavily on whatever metal surfaces come to hand, starts moving again.

She staggers her way halfway around the scrap pile, pausing to retch twice more, though she does keep her feet. When she finds the start of their path back up to the fort she listlessly tries to make the first part of the climb, but appears to be lacking the strength to pull herself up onto the first car window. She pauses, swaying slightly and shakes her head sharply, before glancing down and reaching in to the pile, where her shaking hand closes on the handle of a knife.

It was one of Valaria's, I realize, most likely the one Axel had worn at the back of his home-made belt, which must have fallen free during his swift descent. Antimony holds it like it's the only thing still solid in her world and stares at the blade with her good eye, twisting and turning it in the fading light. Her face shifts and takes on a little more focus, and she looks up and around, finally realizing that the end is imminent. One way or another.

Ten minutes later Afifa limps into frame and the pair square off in the muted light of the distant sunset. Two small girls, both low-scoring in their training evaluations, both written off initially and continually as the weaker half of paired alliances. Both battered and bruised, each armed with a single knife.

There's no real skill on display as they close on one-another, each clearly viewing the other as a beatable target, both verging on the edge of exhaustion. Afifa's wounds are individually less severe, but she is carrying more of them and she visibly winces every time she puts weight on her turned ankle. Antimony's swollen eye hampers her depth perception as well as making her blind to blows from that direction. Luckily for her, the girl from Nine is right-handed and mostly striking on Antimony's good side.

Both land a few minor cuts on the other's arms, mere scratches that they probably don't even feel at this stage of the Games. After a few minutes of this, it becomes clear that Antimony is fading faster. The blows to her head were heavy, and could easily have been fatal. Every time she lunges forward, swinging her knife in wild hope she wobbles a little more when regaining her balance. Every time she dodges or blocks one of Afifa's blows she takes another second longer to steady.

Finally the girl from Nine gains the upper hand, using my tribute's limited vision to drive her empty left fist into Antimony's ribs. My girl gasps and crumples as Afifa lunges forward, her knife-point barely deflected by Antimony's flung forearm. They go to ground, the girl from Nine landing heavily on top of my already winded tribute. A few seconds of squirming and it's clear that Afifa has the advantage. Antimony barely pushes aside the seeking knife-point again, the blade cutting deep into her open palm.

The girl from Nine grins wildly, her victory and continued existence seemingly assured, and she pauses for just half a second to draw back and gain the angle to make her final blow. Somehow, miraculously, Antimony finds the strength to move with her.

The wilful, resilient girl from the slums of District Three wraps her already slashed hand around Afifa's blade, preventing the necessary force for the killing strike and throwing the girl from Nine slightly off-balance. Antimony's right hand—still clutching her own knife out of sheer stubbornness—pulls free of Afifa's pinning knee and snaps up to find its home in the bared throat.

The girl from Nine falls away backward, an odd keening cry escaping through her barely parted lips. Antimony's knife, wedged solidly under the girl's jawbone, prevents Afifa from opening her mouth any wider. She claws at her neck, trying to dislodge the blade and eventually succeeds, causing a brief fountain of blood that rapidly drains and ends with the boom of a cannon.

I stare at the screen in front of me for a full ten seconds before I register what it is showing me. Antimony, already unconscious from her defensive efforts, her heartbeat ragged and jumpy in the bottom corner, but still leaping from spike to spike. Another moment of silence, then a loud squeal as something clamps down on my right arm, nearly startling me into a panic attack.

The flash of color pulls me to my senses and I brace myself against Gloria's excitable bouncing. Our Escort seems too overwhelmed to form actual words, and instead continues to squeal, almost an identical tone to Afifa's death keen. After a minute or so of this odd celebration, during which I can feel the bruises forming on my arm, Gloria calms down enough to let me go and starts babbling about parties and events and television appearances. I try several times to remind her that I can't be in several places at once, and that I've already committed a good portion of my next few days to the sponsors who purchased that final gift which ended up pulling our tribute through, but she is already off in her own world in which she has just reached the pinnacle of success for her chosen career.

As she clatters out of our cabin to accept the congratulations of the assorted victors, Escorts and Games staff in the wider Viewing Hall I take a moment to pinch myself, and to let reality settle in. For the first time in eleven years District Three has a victor.


	10. Chapter 10

By the time I've exchanged a wary handshake with Whisper and Remus Atwood, the District Nine Escort, Gloria has scribbled down a handful of lines for me to deliver to the waiting cameras. She lets them jabber at me for what feels like an hour, though realistically is more like ten minutes, fielding any questions that I start to flounder on herself.

With a new level of assertiveness beyond anything I'd seen from her in the past, she cuts off any further discussion when she spots Portia standing beside one of the junior Gamemakers—the one that questioned myself and Beetee the night of the interviews about our tributes' anti-Capitol attitudes, I realize with a sudden jolt.

The young man is smiling when we reach him though, and assures me that Antimony is in good hands. As always, several medical experts were on-hand at the arena site to ensure our newest victor wouldn't take any further harm in transit. The vehicle graveyard was built relatively close to the Capitol, and even as we're speaking he receives a call on his portable comm-unit that their hovercraft is in sight of the city.

"Where's Beetee," Gloria asks suddenly, and I glance around, realizing my dear mentor isn't nearby. Thinking back, I remember that I saw him briefly just before Axel's unsuccessful attempt to kill Antimony. He'd been up half the night working with the camera developers and had been heading up to his room for a brief nap. The televisions in our Training Center rooms activate automatically for mandatory viewing, but if he was tired enough it's entirely possible that he slept through the broadcasts. Gloria hurries off to check and promises to get him out and talking so that I can check up on Antimony's condition in person.

I scurry after Gamemaker Seneca as he leads the way to the lifts, leaning subtly on Portia when I catch my heel with my other foot and nearly tumble. She grins up at me as she helps me steady, her face flushed with excitement. I think back to her father Lorcan's original intent of bringing her closer to the Games—to show her the unpleasant reality and subtly push her away. Somehow I don't think it's working.

Seneca continues to talk at me as we make our way to the hospital facility, deep in the basement below the Training Center gymnasium. He seems content that Antimony's actions were sufficiently compliant during the Games, and that, with careful editing, no-one will remember anything much about her outspoken district partner. As a physically unimpressive and not overly popular victor, I guess the Capitol media machine is already trying to decide what spin to put on Antimony. On the short journey into the uncomfortably white-walled depths, he suggests several make-over shows and various historic rags-to-riches heroes to compare her to.

I just want to see that she is ok. As ok as you can be coming out of the arena alive. It doesn't take us long to track down a doctor who seems to know a little more about her condition, and he directs us to a side-room. Dragging his eyes up from the electronic tablet, the doctor spots twelve-year-old Portia standing silently behind my chair and raises a questioning eyebrow.

"I'm here to support the District Three mentor," she answers glibly before I can speak. The doctor glances at me, and when I nod, goes back to studying his notes.

"The damage to her head was severe," he starts bluntly, and I see the young Gamemaker beside me frown and lean forward, though the doctor forestalls his question with a raised hand. "She is lucky that the Games ended so soon after it was sustained. We should be able to minimize the damage. As it is, we won't be able to fully gauge the extent until she is awake and able to participate in various cognitive tests."

He sighs and rubs his forehead. "Honestly, with injuries like this, it really is impossible to predict. I've had a similar case end up fully recovered within a month. Another never regained consciousness and we were forced to pull the plug. The fact that she did recover, albeit briefly is a positive sign. My colleagues are running further scans now. We'll know more in an hour, even more in a day or two when she wakes."

The young Gamemaker sits back in frustration, rapping his right-hand fingers against the table while his other hand strokes his artfully curled beard.

"Estimated recovery time?" he asks finally, and the doctor furrows his brow and shrugs in reply.

"Injuries to the head are always tricky; from our preliminary scan, we know her skull was fractured in two places and we have to leave time for the swelling to reduce before we can see more. Many of the rapid healing methods we use are limited when it comes to the brain. I would say a minimum of seven days, more likely ten to fourteen."

Seneca frowns some more and mutters something about being unhelpful. The doctor shrugs again and reminds him that there's a small chance she won't wake at all, which the Gamemaker declares as "simply unacceptable".

I interrupt their bickering to ask about her other wounds and wince as the doctor starts listing them off: Probable blindness of some measure in her right eye. Possible loss of some mobility and strength in her badly cut left hand, though he's more hopeful here as the damage was only minutes old when treatment began. A number of infected cuts and scrapes, already being treated with a cocktail of antibiotics, and she is currently being measured by the plastic surgeons who will provide the customary full body polish once she has regained enough strength. While she's out, they also plan to bring a dentist in to replace nearly all of her teeth; Axel's blows damaged or outright destroyed several and the rest were in no great shape from her rough living prior to the Games.

Apparently two of the surgeons have already suggested various cosmetic alterations. I catch Seneca's look as the doctor makes a quip about turning our ugly duckling into some sort of swan, and I realize with a sinking feeling how he is planning on filling the unknown time between the victory trumpets and the crowning ceremony. And unless the blows to her head have caused a massive change in personality I know that our little victor will hate every moment of it once she wakes

~xXx~

While Antimony sleeps, the Capitol starts planning out her new life and new look. I dodge the worst of it by spending most of my waking hours fulfilling my sponsor debts, and most of the rest sitting by Antimony's bedside, waiting for her to recover. Beetee also delves heavily into our sponsor work to avoid the cameras; he admitted to me sheepishly that he was wakened by Gloria's energetic shaking to learn that he would have a new neighbour in the Victors Village. I do get dragged onto an evening panel show on the second night, alongside several other victors who have some experience in the various makeover options available.

Annie Blake, a normally reticent older victor from District Ten is patched in from her home to discuss her own facial alterations—her face has that odd plastic quality often seen on Capitol citizens who have gone under the knife a few too many times. Cecelia Gerchell and Topaz Courdan are the clothing and accoutrements experts, while last year's victor Sarnia speaks animatedly about her own transition from poor, ugly district girl to acceptably polished victor. I keep quiet at the far end of the table, nodding at the appropriate moments and stammering answers the two brief questions the show's host throws in my direction about the latest advances in laser tattoos and programmable wardrobes.

I watch appreciatively as Cecelia deliberately leads the discussion towards acknowledging that no style will ever be complete without incorporating the inner character of the wearer. She openly encourages everyone to have an opinion, so that Antimony can have a variety of choices available to her when she recovers, and can build her 'new self' up with the aid of the Capitol's finest artistic minds. It won't stop Antimony from being flooded with a hundred different recommendations, but the general sentiment seems to have shifted to letting our new victor make the final choice.

In-between these fashionable interludes, we get a few glimpses of home. Antimony's immediate family get a few segments of camera time, primarily focusing on her older siblings Zircon, Mercury and Cobalt. Her younger brother Wolfram appears briefly on camera, a blackened eye not quite covered by the presumably hastily-applied make-up as he extols his sister's virtues. I can only assume that the crack-down on the lower district has continued, quite possibly under our Mayor's direction as a way of venting his disgust at his newest victor.

Gowan himself makes a blunt appearance, gritting his teeth as he unenthusiastically announces a welcome home party. This will of course be held in the north end of town and I have no doubt our charming mayor will go out of his way to exclude every poorer citizen of Three that he can. Antimony's oldest brother Zircon seizes the opportunity in his next appearance to suggest that all of their family will have to be present. I think back to Antimony's comment on the train ride here about how half the poor end of town were cousins of some sort and groan when I realize what her brother is planning. Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, or the opportunity to stick it to our loathsome toady of a mayor, but I know him well enough to anticipate his likely reaction. And subsequent retaliation.

Antimony finally wakes around noon of the sixth day after she was pulled from the arena. I put aside my notes for Dirkin Clell, Plutarch's chief materials scientist as soon as I see her eyes flutter open. I know from Beetee that when I first appeared to wake, I remained non-responsive for nearly ten hours before coming around to reality. Before I can wonder if my tribute—no, victor now—will be the same, Antimony starts snarling and struggling, her hands clawing against the restrictive sheets holding her firmly to the bed.

Keeping a safe distance for both our sakes, I try to move into her vision, hoping that a familiar face might bring her around. She goes very still when she sees me moving, though I'm not sure if she's thinking 'predator' or 'prey'. Then she frowns and raises her hands up in front of her face, blinking frantically. I wonder again if she is emulating my own first response, examining her killer's hands, but then she waves her hand in front of one eye, then then other, and back again.

Belatedly I recall the doctor's comments about some residual damage to her right eye, possibly resulting in partial blindness. Finally she seems to recognize me, though it takes her a few tries to get any words out. I hurry around to the other side of the bed and pass over the waiting glass of water. It takes Antimony a few tries to grip it—her left hand clearly isn't recovered—and when she brings it to her lips, she inadvertently inhales a large gulp. I lean forward slightly to support the base of the cup while she coughs the mouthful back up, trying not to get too close so that she doesn't feel threatened.

She takes a few deep breaths, coughing again and hawking a glob of spit onto the pristine sheets. Her eyes follow the line of my hand supporting her cup up my arm and to my face and she repeats an incoherent mumble several times before I realize what she is asking:

"Alive?"

I nod, smiling in what I hope is a supportive way.

I get another unarticulated grunt with a slight tone of surprise and help her take a proper drink before the medical staff make their hurried entrance. I retreat to the chair in the corner, watching and nodding encouragingly whenever she glances in my direction, as they put her through a series of tests to gauge the extent of her remaining injuries. I can see her starting to droop again before they are through, and she drops back asleep almost as soon as the head doctor declares he has sufficient data.

I follow him out into the hall after a final glance to confirm that Antimony is once again sleeping. The doctor clears his throat pointedly and leads me down the hall to an office.

"We will be putting her back under for a few minor procedures," he informs me as he waves me into a seat. "She'll be out for another twelve hours now that we are content it is safe to do so. There's a form for you to sign here somewhere," he pauses to rummage through his clipboard of papers and notes, and shrugs when he can't find it immediately.

"No matter. Now as to her injuries." He pauses again and I realize I've leaned forward, my knuckles turning pale where I'm gripping the edge of the table, and flashes me a brief smile that helps me relax a little.

"She appears to be about as well as I anticipated. You probably noticed that there is residual damage to her right eye, though it does appear to be partial. I doubt we can do much to reverse it and there is a very high risk to such procedures. She may have to live with it. She is otherwise physiologically responsive, if a little delayed and her vocal responses were mildly affected, though nothing like the extent that you suffer. I am hopeful that this will improve with time and treatment.

She appears to have lost some coordination in her left hand. This should also improve as the cut tendons finish healing, though some of the effect is likely due to the head injury—you are aware that there's a cross-over in the cerebral cortex?"

I nod vaguely—I've read up a bit on the brain trying to deal with my own issues, though it was a good few years back. The doctor nods and continues, "As to Miss Newen's psychological state, well, I'll leave full judgement to the experts in that field. From my brief observations, she appears to be quite disconnected from the world and will do well to see a psychiatrist to help re-engage. This isn't uncommon for non-volunteer victors, as you may be aware. I can recommend some names if you like?"

I nod, though if I don't like the look of any of them I will probably go back to Damia, who I still get annual check-ups with to receive my prescriptions for the medication I use to manage my own lingering arena damage. I continue to nod as the doctor reels off a list of antibiotics and nutrient replenishers that are being fed through the tube in Antimony's arm alongside the anaesthetic. The multitude of cuts, scabs and bruises are all healed with no lingering signs of infections. The fractures in her skull will heal on their own in time now that the swelling has decreased, and she will be provided with painkiller tablets to deal with the anticipated headaches that will likely linger for at least a few weeks. The dental work is done, the surgeon who suggested D-cup implants to enhance her figure has been chased off and her appendix (identified by one of the surgeons as being partially inflamed and likely to be an issue in a few months) will be removed this afternoon alongside the completion of her full body polish.

I sign off on the paperwork as Antimony's legal guardian and stop by for one more glance at the sleeping victor before heading out to find the rest of our District Three team to plan out the coming days.

~xXx~

The victory ceremony takes place nine days after the Games ended, though if I or the doctors had any say, we would have stretched it longer. We film the official mentor team reunion shot that morning, with Antimony wobbling her way down the corridor and into the waiting room to Gloria's enthusiastic applause and Lorcan's encouraging grin. Our young victor still seems dazed and disoriented, taking a few seconds to respond to any sort of stimulus, and she huddles defensively in her chair, clenching and unclenching her damaged left hand as Gloria natters on about parties and dresses and the extensive make-over options that will soon be presented.

When she does speak, her words are soft, hesitant and very slightly slurred, though they at least appear to be forming complete sentences. Her first question is whether her family are ok, and Lorcan quickly reassures her that her parents and all of her siblings were on screen just that morning, making preparations for her welcome-home party. Her second question is a bit more worrying: she asks what happened to her friend and ally Axel.

The three of us glance at one another and Gloria opens her mouth to remind the poor, broken girl that the boy she thought was her friend tried to kill her and that she killed him in return. Lorcan cuts our Escort off with a sharp gesture and suggests that we need to get started on some dress fittings, and we can continue the conversation upstairs just as easily.

Antimony looks confused, but lethargically agrees and trails obediently behind us as we make our way to the elevator. It's only a short ride in the clear tube overlooking the city, but even the momentary flash of sunlight off one of the neighbouring buildings makes Antimony flinch and huddle tighter into the corner.

We let her drift over to the lounge and curl up in the corner against the armrest while Lorcan calls his daughter and starts listing off instructions and Gloria bustles over to the waiting Avox with the doctor's meal instructions. I take a seat on the nearest armchair and wait for Antimony to re-focus and look at me.

"It's going to be hard…to…to…talk about…"

My words get stuck, but she nods slowly, apparently following.

"What do you...remember? At the…the end?"

She winces, rubbing the damaged right side of her head, and thinks for a minute before answering.

"I remember the other girl. She tried to kill me, but she was stupid. Thought she'd won before the fight was over."

She frowns thoughtfully, and adds, "I remember her before, she was always with that boy. Did I kill him too?"

"No," I can honestly assure her. "She killed him."

Antimony shrugs listlessly. "I thought they were friends." Another frown as she rubs the crease in her forehead. She takes a few deep breaths, then looks up at me with those dark victors' eyes.

"I killed him, didn't I. Axel. I killed my friend too."

Behind her I can see Gloria has returned from her organizing and is ready to join the conversation. I make another sharp gesture and our Escort thankfully takes the hint and keeps quiet.

"Antimony…." I make sure I have her full attention before continuing. "He attacked you. He tried to…to kill you. You fought. You won."

She shakes her head slowly, bowing it and biting her lip as she tries to deny what she now knows she remembers as true. I sit back as she draws her knees up under her chin, clamping them in place with her still-scrawny arms and watch as her shoulders heave with the weight of her sobs. After a few minutes she looks up again, and I see her face is streaked damp but her eyes are clearer than they have been since she shoved a crude dart through the ribs of her former ally.

"I thought it was a dream," she whispers, turning her head to wipe her nose against her arm. Gloria pointedly clears her throat and holds out a frilly white handkerchief, which Antimony warily takes and scrubs her cheeks with.

I give our Escort another warning look, earning two raised eyebrows and some pursed lips, but ultimately keeping the lecture quiet for now.

"It all seems like a dream. A bad one, mostly. I couldn't wake up." The frilly lace in her hand dances over her trembling fingers. "And now I have to live it again."

I nod. Unfortunately there's no getting out of it. Tonight she will relive her nightmare at least one more time.

Lorcan returns from his call, walking heavily around the end of the couch so that he doesn't startle her and offers Antimony a hand.

"Let's get you cleaned up. I've programmed your wardrobe to give you something comfortable for the next few hours. You'll feel better after a wash and some food."

Antimony picks at the frayed orange jumpsuit (they like to film the reunion shot in a close facsimile of the arena clothing so that they can cut it into a single shot with the victory moment in post-production), then nods and warily accepts the extended arm. Lorcan lays his other arm gently around her back and supports her to her room.

Gloria has the decency to wait until we hear the door snick closed before she launches into a stream of worried questions about Antimony's mental state. I dig out the list of psychiatrists from my notebook and let her do the research while I clear my own head by watching the city from the balcony.

Lorcan joins me there briefly once he's sure Antimony will manage to get clean and dressed on her own, and seems content to sit in silence for a few minutes letting the rumble of cars, the shouts of playing children and the general bustle of the Captiol fill the air.

Antimony wasn't hugely popular, so the pack of reporters camped on the steps of the Training Center is barely a dozen strong. Compared to any of the Career victors, who may see fifty or more media plus dozens of fans, it's practically an empty street below.

Lorcan squeezes my shoulder briefly as he rises to go rally his troops. The gleaming wall-clock only reads eleven twenty, so I take my own opportunity to clean up and join a well-scrubbed Antimony for lunch. She's on a strict diet of stomach-friendly foods and, remembering my own discontent at watching Beetee eating a mouth-watering stew in front of me, I join her in her plate of barely-flavored rice and half of an apple.

My stomach is still growling after, though she seems to struggle with even the meagre amount and leaves several forkfuls in the bottom of the bowl. It's the least District Three thing I've seen her do in all the time I've known her. She continues to huddle in on herself when she's not otherwise occupied, one hand picking at the plain, silky shirt from her wardrobe, the other rubbing her right brow. Without a word I stand and hunt down her painkiller tablets. She gives me a weak half-smile—one side of her face is still less responsive—and takes them without argument.

Her apathy continues when her prep team arrive, shrill and overbearing in their excitement. Juliette, now an old hand at dressing a victor, manages to keep the other two mostly in order. They pull Antimony away for a second shower, a heavy moisturising scrub and to do something fancy with her hair.

I discover that Lorcan hasn't been idle in these last few days. He—with Dido's subtle and unofficial assistance—has been compiling the best of the many suggestions about our new victor's new style, and has decided to bow to general public sentiment. Rather than theme her outfit on her arena, her Games, Antimony will become the embodiment of an old fairy-tale: the ugly duckling who became a swan.

Her dress for the victory ceremony is sewn with hundreds of real feathers, starting at a gray-brown around her neck and torso, and drifting into a long, beautiful silvery white around her sleeves and shins. Her short hair is swept back from her face and pinned above each ear with diamond-studded silver feathers, leaving the dome bare for the crown she will be wearing by the time the night is out. The tips of her black hair have also been dyed, I realize as she turns and the silvery-white shine catches in the light.

It's a mark of how detached she is from the world that she doesn't fidget with the hairpieces or complain about the feathers that must be tickling her skin. She doesn't even object to the poking and prodding of the four-person style team who circle her to ensure every feather and dyed hair is in its proper place. It's not until Beetee ducks back in to wish us luck, and to change from his stained shirt to a suit jacket that she shows any overt reaction.

She doesn't acknowledge his brief greeting on his way in, but two seconds after he steps into Antimony's vision while fixing his buttons the girl shrieks and throws her hands protectively over her face dropping to a huddled crouch and knocking the silver-feathered hairpins askew.

Her prep team converges on her, shrilly admonishing her until Lorcan shoos them away and kneels beside her, gently touching her chin and nudging her face up to look at him. Antimony takes a few deep breaths, glances at Beetee and flinches again with another small yip.

My mentor remains still and calm, still in her line of vision and waits for her to regain control. Shakily, staring at Lorcan's lightly stubbled chin, Antimony regains her composure somewhat, though her knuckles are still clenched white. She whispers something that only her stylist can hear and he nods, reaching forward to rest a gentle hand on her shoulder before helping her up and leading her back to her room. The prep team trail after them, heels clicking in time with their worried glances.

"Cicely," I hear Beetee mutter, shaking his head as he finishes buttoning his shirt. It takes me a minute to place the name; one of the Careers he killed with his electric trap. The girl that one of his prep team members apparently looked enough like that Beetee stabbed her with a nail file.

I run my mind over the other tributes who died during these Games, trying to picture who Antimony might have imagined seeing, but none of them are really close in appearance to my mentor. Which means she must be generalizing a great deal and be….

Axel. Her ally who betrayed her and she was forced to kill. The resemblance is minimal; both are dark-haired, dark-eyed and male, though Axel had a good four inches on Beetee in height and a layer of rangy muscle that is almost unheard of in District Three. If every male who vaguely resembles her deceased ally sets her off like this, she is going to have a hell of a time when she returns home. I close my eyes, picturing her older brothers who have been prominently featured on-screen back home. Both Zircon and Mercury Newen are similar in size and stature to Beetee, though with leaner faces and no glasses, making it an even closer in resemblance to the dead boy from Six. I don't doubt for a second that Antimony fell into the trap of thinking of her ally with a similarly brotherly affection. And trust.

I hope for her sake that it's just a temporary after-effect of her time in the Hunger Games, or her return and recovery are going to be extremely difficult.


	11. Chapter 11

The prep team are forced to rush their own fancying up after Antimony's unfortunate reaction. They join us under the presentation stage in a clatter of heels and fluttering of metallic silver capes. Phoebe has also found time to apply long silvery talon-like nails and Vesuvia has straightened and spiked her vibrant blue hair in a rough-cut style similar to what Antimony wore at the reaping. All three of their capes are edged with feathers and diamond-like stones.

Lorcan has also stuck to the theme, his suit made of a near-black metallic cloth, his lapel-pin a cluster of feathers secured by a ring of small diamonds. Despite his long years on our prep team, he's still technically a first-year stylist and he's the first newcomer to dress a victor since Tigris back in the Forty-sixth Games. I don't doubt he'll be invited back next year, possibly even offered a position with another better-regarded district. Or maybe Dido will retire and let him take over Three full-time. Either way, I hope he does stay as he's one of the few people I am genuinely comfortable around, and Antimony appears to have decided to trust him too.

I guide her to her position on the silver disc—so reminiscent of the tributes' entrance into the arena that I don't know why we don't see victors losing control of themselves every other year, then take up my own spot at the direction of a harried production assistant.

Lorcan grins at me and leans over to adjust my own feather-and-diamond hairpiece (put together by Portia at the last minute so that we would all match). He says something but his words are drowned out by a loud cheer above as Caesar Flickerman takes to the stage above us.

It never seems to matter for these post-Games events what the popularity of a victor is, the experienced host of the Hunger Games always gets the crowd going at the start of the night. The prep team rise up to raucous applause which continues on for Gloria, who is already waving as soon as the disc starts its upward journey. Lorcan ascends to an absolute avalanche of noise. Then it is my turn.

I brace myself as the disc begins rising and wait for it to fully stop before I attempt the curtsy Gloria drilled me in, sweeping out the black-and-silver skirts with only the slightest wobble. I argued our Escort down to chunky two-inch heels that I can mostly manage and she agreed when I nearly turned an ankle trying on her own shoes with their four-inch stilettos.

I get more applause than I expected, and nod my head towards the box holding at least two of my major sponsors before accepting Caesar Flickerman's offered hand and guidance to the edge of the stage. As per my instructions, I hurry down the three small stairs and into the reserved seat next to Lorcan. He rests a gentle hand on my shaking knee as the lights dim and the crowd hushes momentarily, before our newest victor appears in a blaze of silver and white light. In the few minutes we left her alone, Antimony has adopted her new favorite posture, arms huddled tight around herself, head bowed. It takes her a few seconds to register the blare of noise and the bright lights, and she slowly raises her head and drops her arms to the sides, revealing the gleaming silver-white feathers that glisten in the light. By chance, she has produced the exact effect Lorcan was trying for, and I have no doubt that there is already a movie producer or two planning a new remake of the old fairy-tale as our ugly duckling reluctantly accepts Caesar's hand.

Thankfully, his hair is an incandescent shade of orange this year, and his eyes are a pale hazel, so he doesn't trigger any adverse reactions as he leads our new victor to her throne. Antimony even forces out a vague almost-smile as he announces her to the cheering audience, then maintains a neutral half-aware expression for most of the next three hours.

In a way I'm glad she has spaced out, as it means she doesn't react when Axel appears on screen during the reaping replay. We watch once more as the 59th Hunger Games are played out in front of us: the training scores and interviews (they manage to scrounge a workable thirty seconds from Antimony about fighting spirit and strong allies, and all but skip over Nikon, of course).

Still not a twitch from our victor as the Cornucopia bloodbath plays out in full. Her and Axel's flight to the north, and their construction of their fortress and projectile weapons earns a conspicuous amount of screen time.

I find myself spacing out too as they stretch out the limited action to fill the requisite three hours; it was a slow-paced Games by most standards, and without interviews and other filler it's hard for them to flesh out much of a story for Antimony. By the time they show that fateful morning when her ally, a boy she had started to think of as a protective and loving older brother, tried to cave in her head with a spiked club, the crowd is restless and a low murmur of soft conversation runs throughout the tiered seating.

The half-hearted cheer as our young victor forces her crude glass-tipped dart through Axel's ribs to pierce his heart jolts Antimony out of her daze and I see her eyes widen slightly and her knuckles clench white as they grasp the sharp edges of her jagged metallic throne. Caesar Flickerman taps his fingers against his microphone controls and leans in slightly to murmur something to her. She swallows visibly and nods, but her shoulders start shaking as the hovercraft arrives to remove her former ally's body and she continues to tremble throughout Afifa's betrayal and subsequent trek to the final fight.

Even during the final stumbling, awkward brawl, the bulk of the audience seems disengaged, and the applause is ragged during the fading visual of Antimony's bleeding, unconscious form. The national anthem starts blaring and it takes her half-way through to realize that Caesar is offering her a hand to rise, which she reluctantly accepts. Luckily most people don't notice this as they are more focused on the spot-lit figure slowly marching across the stage, trailed by a pretty girl around ten years old who beams over the spiky crown she is carrying.

Antimony is short enough that President Snow easily rests the metal circlet on her head, carefully placing it between the diamond-pinned feather pieces. He smiles his cold smile for the cameras and even shoots a glance my way which sends a cold shiver down my spine. Every time I see him up close like this, I can't help but remember that awful night I spent handcuffed to a table, covered in my friend's blood while he calmly informed me that he was as good as sentencing my sister to die.

I shake my head and force away such thoughts here where my facial expression might betray them on camera. The last thing our district needs is any more reprisals from high ranking Capitol officials; It's going to be bad enough just dealing with our toady mayor Gowan.

Our little team booth is hustled off-stage and held to the side while we wait for our crowned victor to join us for a night of being talked at by our sponsors and Panem's rich and famous. Just as the cars arrive, a breathless runner appears at Gloria's elbow, holding out two packages of tablets. Our Escort takes them and immediately pops two of the yellow ones and hands them to me. I raise an eyebrow and peer at the box, trying to make out the minuscule writing obscured by her fluorescent green talon nails. She has already turned away though, repeating the process with the other box and Antimony, who nearly fumbles the blue-and-white tablet she is given and, at Lorcan's reassurance, chokes the pill down.

I glance at my friend, who gives me a subtle nod, and decide to trust Gloria's judgement on this one. It turns out to be a good call as whatever the drug was, it dulls my senses, making the loud noise and closely-packed bustle of the victory party much more bearable.

Up to thirty party invites always go by priority to any sponsors who spent above a certain amount on the victor (with the other invitations randomly allocated to other large sponsors of the less fortunate tributes) so I am able to hide in the corner chatting with Luda Masterson, Juno Walker and Titanios Phelps discussing various branches of technological research. Plutarch Heavensbee joins us briefly, though he quickly deserts us for several of his Gamemaker friends. Even if he doesn't get the now-vacant Gamemaker position, his companies are heavily involved in developing and maintaining the force-field technology, seismic stability tech and hovercrafts that are heavily used in arena construction and preservation. Just like his father before him, every event, party or casual conversation is a business opportunity.

As all of the major sponsors who backed Antimony were my industry contacts, our newest victor spends much of her night slumped in an uncomfortable looking chair, smiling her vague half-smile when forcibly prompted by Gloria. After the first hour, all those inclined to speak with the guest of honor have had their five minutes of vacant looks and mumbled conversation, and have moved on to the laden tables and interactions with their own sort.

During a lull in my conversation, I bundle up a plate of the plainer food items and have a waiter bring me a glass of juice, and sit with Antimony while she picks at the meal. Her appetite is still quite low; she only manages a single fruit tart and half a bowl of melon ice-cream before she puts it aside. I glance around while she brushes pastry flakes from her feathered dress; I don't see Sarnia, last year's victor in attendance, though that's not entirely unexpected. She wasn't particularly popular or attractive, and was therefore of little interest to the Capitol's wealthy upper class.

The previous victor to that, Topaz, is leaning on the arm of a well-dressed man, smothering a yawn as he launches into a story for his nearby audience. Felix, another young-ish victor from One is also around, sitting with a slightly plump woman whose neck is dripping with heavy jewelry. Beetee managed to dodge his invitation by accepting an emergency call-out from one of our other industry friends, and the only other victor I can spot in the crowd is Noah, District Two's most recent victor. He and Felix are generally found together during Games events, though I notice the young man from Two seems not to have a set partner for the evening as he is gleefully dancing with a collection of women and men, shooting the odd mocking wave and grin off towards the District One man in the corner.

Somehow I doubt Antimony is going to be bothered by those sorts of interactions in the years to come. I expect she, like Sarnia before her, will get some interest from plastic surgeons, make-up companies and other body and hair stylists who need celebrity endorsements for their products. Even then, she will probably be replaced as soon as the next female victor is crowned, and will drift into the realms of near-freedom. Well, as free as you get watching children nominally in your care die horribly every twelve months while you re-live your own nightmares.

Gloria drags herself away from the limelight around midnight and spots me mentally deconstructing and redesigning the support structure of the ballroom, and Antimony rubbing her head and wincing at the bright lights. A car is summoned immediately and we make our quiet escape, happy to let the party carry on in our absence. The rooms in the Training Center are empty when we get back; even the assigned avoxes are out, likely not expecting us back until the early hours of the morning.

"Sleep?" I suggest as a sudden wash of weariness sweeps over me.

"You got some more of them pills?" Antimony asks softly, rubbing her head again. I can see moisture in her eyes and her brow is furrowed in pain. The doctors suggested that the painful headaches may continue for some weeks (one even said several months). I frown as Gloria doesn't hesitate to hand another pill over and bustle into the kitchen for a glass of water; I've heard that dealing with post-arena pain was how both District Six victors got started on their morphling addictions.

Here in the Capitol it's easy enough to get a wide variety of pills for all sorts of ailments (or entertainment with the right doctor or some friends on the street). In the districts however, they seem to restrict the purchasable medicines to a handful of options, and sell them at a premium. The cost is obviously of no concern to a victor, but the lifelong dependence on the effects can be more devastating than, well, a bad blow to the head.

I decide to let it go for now; if the pain is driving her to tears, there's no way Antimony will be able to sleep without it. We part ways quietly, two of us heading for our beds, and Gloria back out to the assorted parties still echoing in the streets ("The night is still young and there's so much to celebrate!"). She's been taking her own pills, which will undoubtedly see her here bright and bubbly first thing in the morning set up for the final interview.

~xXx~

I get to mock Lorcan the next morning as he arrives hung-over with the rest of the prep team to doll up Antimony for her final interview. He winces at Gloria's high pitched chattering and smothers a yawn behind an elegantly-draped sleeve as Juliette and Vesuvia hurry in to Antimony's bathroom.

"My daughter is a bad influence," he mutters to me when I finally take mercy and brew two large cups of coffee, dumping three heaping spoons of sugar into his. I raise my eyebrows at this—Portia is barely twelve ( _only just of reaping age if she wasn't from the Capitol_ , my tired brain helpfully supplies).

"Oh, you know," he says with a vague wave. "She wanted to meet some of the other fashion designers, and then I got talking to them after I sent her home, and then Maximus Melli and Belladonna Cooke got me drinking and…"

He trails off with a withering glare as I turn my laugh into a fake cough.

"You victors, heartless the lot of you," he says, turning his nose up and simultaneously trying to sip his drink, which splashes onto his silk shirt. I laugh some more, especially when that cute rueful grin escapes onto Lorcan's face. He clears his throat importantly and says, "If you need me I'll be doing some-ah- last minute costume adjustments."

He slips out the door, dodging past Gloria (temporarily distracted by a messenger) before our Escort can see the spreading brown stain on his cream silk shirt.

"Where-" she starts impatiently, and I dutifully repeat Lorcan's excuse, which is accepted readily enough. "Yes, well, that message was from Diventus Culpepper. You know, the jeweller? He has some lovely feathered pieces, and he though Lorcan might be willing to collaborate during the victory tour styling…"

I let her ramble on about the various contacts she's made in the last week while I snag the newspaper and start filling in the puzzles page. Lorcan returns within the hour looking a little more alert, and I leave him to the tender mercies of our overzealous escort while I check in on Antimony.

The girl appears to have gone into her shell again. She is staring vacantly at the wall, hands clasped firmly around the sides of her chair seat while Juliette rubs some cream into her hair and Vesuvia works on her toenails. We spoke briefly last night about the upcoming interview, and I'm reasonably confident that she won't say anything that will get her or her family (or me) in trouble. She's just…not very sociable. And coming from me, that's saying something. Then again my issue has always been less about being around people and more not feeling a need to verbally join a conversation.

Antimony has lost her outright hostility to "them awful rich types", but will never be anything more than cordial. Polite, at a stretch. I did warn her to mentally prepare herself to talk about Axel, which may be why she has withdrawn again. Her appetite is also still worryingly low; one of her doctors has been hassling Gloria, but beyond holding a gun to her head until she eats…

I shake my head at the image and drop back into reality when I hear Lorcan asking my opinion about eye-shadow colors, presumably not for the first time. He smiles indulgently as he repeats the question once more and leads me out to discuss options. I glance back at Antimony on the way out; she hasn't moved from her wall-staring vigil.

~xXx~

The interview isn't a complete disaster. I give Caesar a list of safe-ish questions and a stammered warning that our young victor can be very emotional when the topic of her slain ally comes up. I'm reminded that, since her whole Games revolved around that ally, it's hardly possible not to discuss him and that Antimony should be prepared for that eventuality.

Caesar says it kindly, and I'm sure he will do his best to help her, but I spend the minutes before they start rummaging through Gloria's pill collection (and ignoring my thoughts from the previous night about reducing Antimony's drug dependency) for something that will dull the physical and emotional pain our victor will undoubtedly be in before the hour is up.

As a result, the girl only has two minor emotional lapses instead of a full meltdown, and manages some semi-coherent tear-choked answers to a range of questions about her family, her creative weapon and fortress construction, and about how it felt to fight off her treacherous ally. She actually does improve towards the end when Caesar turns the discussion to her preference for sweet foods and to the dozen fashion houses who have offered her full remakes to create her new style. She's even heard of two of them and isn't as vehemently opposed to the idea as I thought she would be.

I think we all heave a sigh of relief when the call comes out that we are done, and the rapid pack-up and homeward journey begins. I throw my clothes, books and notes haphazardly into my bag and pass it off to a waiting Avox for transport to the cars, joining Beetee at the window for one last glimpse of the Capitol skyline for the year.

No, not for the year, I remind myself, though the thought still seems strange, like a discordant note in a well-known song. I'll be back here in six months' time for the Victory Tour. As much as I hate the traditions around the Hunger Games designed to keep the slaughter of children at the forefront of everyone's' minds, I can't help feel a slight pang of excitement at the prospect of getting to see all the districts once more.


	12. Chapter 12

By the end of the first week back in Three, it's clear that the tension between the two ends of town has distinctly worsened from having a victor. Over the course of the Games, there were three more executions (not including the silent disappearance of Nikon's immediate family, which received no public notice) and another two dozen public beatings, mostly Scrapyard-scavenger related.

A team of organizers arrives with us on the train to set up the discussed 'welcome home party', and a troop of additional Peacekeepers follows two days later after a brawl at the party spills over into the streets and leaves five of the white-clad men and women injured, one permanently crippled. The numerous district folk injuries (and the death of a toddler crushed in the press of people) are of much less concern to the officials, and another round of punishments is meted out, almost exclusively targeting the hundred-odd Newen 'cousins' that made an appearance. Even Antimony's second oldest brother Mercury took a nasty baton clubbing when he jumped into a scrap between a grabby Peacekeeper and two pre-teen girls.

The presentation of the house in the Victor's Village is marred by Gowan's insistence of strict adherence to his precious curfew laws, which prevents Zircon and Cobalt (both of age now) from remaining beyond the first ten minutes. They leave sullenly, along with the still-limping sixteen-year-old Mercury, and it's another two weeks before we are able to process the paperwork that names Antimony and her older siblings as partial guardians of the younger ones. It's a loophole that I suspect the government may try to change, but for now it enables victors to bring in their immediate family to the Village until the youngest sibling ages out of the reaping.

The first morning that they are all waking up under the same roof, I'm up early from a buzzing series of nightmares about (these generally return in force for a few weeks after returning from the Games and gradually trail out to occasional instances for the rest of the year), and it's only pleasantly warm so I have the kitchen window open as I down my morning coffee.

It takes me a few minutes to process the noise that echoes up from the southern end of the Village, and by the time I've got out the door and started across the asphalt a pair of Peacekeepers are already nearly at the newly occupied house. The front door opens just before they reach it and Antimony wobbles out, trying to dodge between them, though her balance and agility are sufficiently reduced that the white-clad man easily catches her and secures her in place with firm arms around her scrawny shoulders and chest. She squirms in his grip, fingernails raking at his breastplate and drawing blood as they claw his chin (most of the Peacekeepers around here have started wearing their helmets full-time while on duty; I suppose he was eating breakfast when the screaming started).

The other Peacekeeper—a woman judging by her build, as her face is covered by her dark-visored helmet—snatches Antimony's hands and drags them upwards, limiting the damage that the young victor can do. Behind them, the wiry figures of Mercury and Zircon lean out of the open door, the latter staunching a nose-bleed in the crook of his raggedly-sleeved arm.

They start yelling abuse at the Peacekeepers, who respond with threats of their own both to the boys and to the writhing, screeching girl they are trying to control. I shove past the woman, hoping that my face or voice is sufficiently familiar and grab Antimony's prominent ears, forcing her to look at me. She responds by kicking me in the leg several times until I start calling her by name.

Like a switch has been flipped, she sags in their grips, retreating to the mouse-like shell of her former self that she occupies when not immediately threatened. She blinks slowly at first, then rapidly at the morning light which gleams off the woman peacekeeper's closed visor.

"I was…I was back there," she says slowly. "I was sleeping and it was cold and I started to reach for a blanket, then _he_ was standing over me with one and I remembered…"

The male Peacekeeper releases his hold a little, letting Antimony twist so that she can cry into her raised sleeve. The woman doesn't budge, though her visored head turns to face me and I can just about feel the glare behind the tinted glass.

"Disturbing the peace is a grade two infringement," she says, even her voice sounding slightly mechanical through the grated filter. "Noise levels above sixty decibels are not permitted during curfew hours. If the house residents are unable to comply with these regulations, they will be barred from the premises."

"It was her that was screaming," Mercury calls out as the brothers approach the group.

"She has indicated that one or both of you precipitated the incident," the woman replies, head tilted aggressively towards the two boys. "I would suggest you reconsider your actions or remove yourselves back to the slums you belong in. Consider this an official warning."

She releases Antimony's wrists, leaving my grip of the girl's head and the quick reflexes of the male Peacekeeper to keep the girl upright. Now that she has calmed down, the young victor shies away from the strong male touch, and I slide an arm around her back to support her standing. The Peacekeepers march away, the man throwing a possibly apologetic look back as he wipes the blood off his chin.

Both Newen brothers hurry forward to help, then slow when their victor sister visibly flinches at their approach. It takes Antimony a few more seconds of slow blinking and head-shaking before she fully recognizes them and allows them to take her arms. I hear her mutter something about pills for her headache as they guide her back inside, and I consider following. Ultimately I decide to leave it to their family, for now. After all, the pills also contain a mild sedative and she is clearly not getting the sleep she needs to recover.

~xXx~

Antimony continues to have violent nightmares that resolve into screaming fits upon waking and seeing her brothers nearby, though we manage between us all to cover it. Beetee helps the ever-versatile Zircon and Cobalt replace their house windows with a sound-muffling glass that looks similar enough to pass casual inspection. They keep these and the door shut at all times, and both Zircon and Merc (and even twelve-year-old Wolf) learn to stay well clear of their sister until she's had her morning tablets.

Antimony's father Solen doesn't seem to trigger a panic reaction, most likely due to his scraggly beard and gray-shot hair. Zircon starts growing his own whispy beard out, which helps a little and, at my mother's suggestion, I order some hair dye for the three boys which shifts their hair color to a dull auburn. It works well for a couple of weeks until Wolf and Merc are dragged out of their school classes and punished for 'inappropriate citizen dress'. The new regulation our charming mayor Gowan has put in place bans any district citizen from wearing brightly colored clothing, or having hair coloring, piercings or other noticeable accessories without a special permit.

Public holidays such as Reaping Day, New-years and the upcoming parcel days are considered exemptions, but for the rest of the year we as a district are expected to look and dress as dull as our surroundings. I quickly discover that some of the wealthier families at the far north of town receive their personal permits before the week is out. The two-dozen Capitol Liasons (and in four cases, their extended families that live out here with them) and any off-duty Peacekeepers are of course exempt from the rule as well. It's not entirely clear where victors fall under this new ruling, and since Antimony still flinches at the sight of any young dark-haired male and Beetee isn't exactly known for his gaudy clothing or flashy jewelry, I decide to make the test run.

Shortly after the first parcel day I take the bus into the town square to browse the shops in the surrounding streets. It's the midday bus, generally less full than the morning and evening runs, and I notice all seven fellow passengers as well as the driver shooting glances at my attire when they think I'm not looking. I had to dig through the depths of my wardrobe to find something suitably flamboyant as I tend towards subtle colors and comfortable, practical outfits when left to my own devices.

In the spare bedroom closet I found the remains of a long-distant shopping spree from a Capitol visit back when I had young, lively friends to drag me around malls and encourage me to step outside of my comfort zone. The dress is made of layered purple silk in varying shades, each piece edged in bright golden thread, with heavier golden embroidery trailing up one sleeve to the collar. A translucent gold-tinged shawl with beaded tassels adds to the gaudy effect, and I even found a pair of sandals with a thumbnail-sized red gemstones pinning the stiff golden bows. I use a pair of diamond-studded combs (a birthday gift from Lorcan some years back) to pull my loose curls from my face, revealing my re-pierced ears and the dangling beaded gold earrings hanging from them.

I finish the look with a beaded golden purse nearly the size of my book bag, which has the added benefit of being able to fit my smaller purchases and wallet. Normally I might be concerned about baiting authority figures over something as petty as a dress code, but as I am the mentor of our most recent victor, expected to provide a brief interview on Antimony's 'progress' in a month, and to appear in person for the entire Victory Tour, I'm not overly worried about my personal safety.

I don't get much of a reaction from the District One imports shop, where I select my usual collection of odd flowers to be delivered to the Village, nor at the fresh fruit and vegetable market, where the only customers who can afford the produce are generally Capitol citizens or those wealthy enough to be friendly with the Mayor.

I do see a few heads turn when I step into the large tinnier, where many working-class families that live nearby or are in the area for the day source their food. Unlike the smaller market-sellers of tinned food, this shop has a massive variety of packaged goods besides the common staples. They also have a bakery in store which produces the sheets of square-cut small bread-rolls that are a staple in our district.

A pair of Peacekeepers picking through the small assortment of candy bars spot the reflections off my beaded gold handbag dancing along the walls and march authoritatively over to me.

"Do you have your permit number for District Three dress code authorization?" the shorter man asks.

From the way he is peering at me, I'm guessing he doesn't recognize me. Most Peacekeepers would not dress so gaudily even when off-duty and there are only thirteen other female Capitol citizens currently residing in our district as Liaisons, or direct relatives thereof. From the wealthy district citizens, there's maybe another fifteen or twenty women who might be able to afford an outfit similar to mine, and anyone who regularly patrols the upper district would probably know them by sight.

The other man squints at me, tilting his head as though trying to recall why my face might be familiar.

"Permit number?" I reply questioningly, trying to sound innocent.

Peacekeeper number one begins rattling off the new law until his partner elbows him and leans over to murmur something. I catch the word "victor" followed by a double-take from Mr. Rules and regulations.

"Er…ah…yes, well, of course I would assume….hrm." He glances back to his sharp-elbowed colleague. "I'm not sure whether victors were in the general exclusions."

"I should hope that we….we….are," I tell him with as much authority as I can muster. "Our stylist has requested that I…that we…start developing our new…new…new…victor's…style for her…her…tour…"

"Ooh, yes, I can't wait!" A young woman's voice squeals behind us and I turn to see one of the teenaged daughters of a Capitol Liaison with puffy black hair and thick make-up accentuating her wide blue eyes. "Has she decided which of the fashion houses she will go with yet? I hope she chooses Armenti's, they have so much better taste in color-matching and accessories than Minter or Pure Bliss. And Parisia's stuff is all so dated. I mean it's fine for the older folk, but you wouldn't catch someone _our_ age in it."

The two peacekeepers share a confused glance as the girl continues, "And is it true that Lorcan Carlisle is looking to collaborate with Diventus Culpepper for the Victory Tour? Or was that just for the ceremony? I loved Diventus' jungle collection a few years back. I still wear one of them on my bracelet here, see."

She flashes a heavily laden charm bracelet which includes a ruby and emerald adorned tropical bird pendant.

"Oh surely these silly new rules don't apply to victors. I mean, they're practically on a level with us in the Capitol, and you can't expect them to drop back to the dark ages every time they go home."

Rules strokes his chin, brow furrowed in thought. Mr. Elbows nods slowly.

"Yes, I suppose it does make sense to treat victors like Capitol citizens in this case," he says. "After all, it's just the three of you. Not hard to forget."

"And our families?" I ask, trying to sound like I just want clarification and not an easy resolution to some of Antimony's troubles.

Now they both shake their heads, more sure of themselves here. I expect the fact that Wolf and Mercury were already targeted means that they feel they have a precedent.

"No ma'am, we have already been told that families are not exempt. Only fair since our new lass has so many _cousins_."

His colleague snorts, undoubtedly recalling the carnage of the party a month or so back.

"But we'll let the others know about you and Antimony and…erm..it's Beetee, yes?"

He nods, apparently happy with this resolution and nudges his colleague's attention back to the shelf of candy bars.

I turn away to finish my own shopping, realizing that my knees are in fact shaking slightly, and yelp when I feel something latch onto my wrist.

"I don't suppose Antimony would want someone to try on outfits with?" The Capitol girl asks hopefully as I gently pry her fingers off my arm. "Only Diantha, she was my best friend you see, she went back home at the start of the year to study theatre. And the Rosewaters, you know, who used to oversee the photography sector, well they changed out their Liaison as well and that meant Melania had to go back home too with her mother about a year ago. My sister Selena isn't interested in fashion; all she wants to do is her abstract art. Painted boxes and stuff, you know."

"I…I'll ask…" I manage to get out as the girl takes a breath, and she gives me a wide smile that makes her look almost as young as Antimony.

"Oh would you? That would be wonderful to have a friend out here who isn't _boring_. And who is actually going to get to do something about her looks in the Capitol. You don't know how hard it is to talk fashion with some of these district girls who can't even afford a decent make-up brush, never mind any sort of cosmetic procedure. I'm Theia, by the way. Theia Payne, though I think we have met at the last two Victory Tour dinners."

I smile and nod as I start to back away, privately doubting that Antimony will want anything to do with this chattery nuisance. Unfortunately, since the girl will undoubtedly be attending the Victory Tour celebration I'm obliged to at least mention it to Antimony so that she'll have some idea of what is going on when the girl inevitably corners her at the party.

To my surprise, Antimony isn't entirely against the idea.

"I have to do something, right?" she says dully when I drop by her house the next afternoon. "They want to dress me up, might as well get used to it now. And I need to get out of here for a bit. Lying down or watching TV just makes my head hurt." She nods at the TV, which is currently showing a long-haired cat sitting on a stand while people hang a ribbon around its neck.

I doubt a few shopping sessions with a talkative Capitol girl will do anything for her chronic headaches, but her psychiatrist has said that Antimony's recovery will stall if she spends her days huddling in her room doing nothing. Gloria has already called me once with a preliminary list of victor talents, all Capitol-approved pastimes, one of which Antimony is supposed to develop a deep passion for. The number one option (based on how her Games closed out) is fashion, and I suppose the starting point for that would require multiple shopping excursions and being seen wearing different sorts of clothes.

In the interests of not leaving her completely to the mercy of an over-excited Capitolite (and seeking an alternative to me feeling obliged to join them), I suggest that Cobalt might want to go along too. The older Newen girl laughs harshly and shakes her head, reminding us that she technically isn't allowed to wear such fancy clothes in public, even if it is in the shops.

"I dunno Co, the rules said you can't wear 'em, didn't say nothing about you just trying 'em on," Merc suggests from the couch.

Cobalt rolls her eyes and replies, "Yeah but it ain't worth spending four hours sitting in the stocks if one of them nasty ones comes past and sees me and don't agree." She shakes her head and straightens her collar. "Anyway, I just got a job down in Factory 117, doing quality control of their plastics."

She grins and strokes the cream shirt and charcoal black pants, which fulfil the color regulations but are much finer cut than most middle-class district citizens could afford. "Amazing how much easier it is to get work when I have real clothes and a chance to wash."

She flicks her dark hair, which she wears in a long, straight tail down her back. I know that none of these kids had had any luck finding official work before, in part because their best clothes had holes and stains and their 'house' had lacked any basic amenities like running water or heating (such luxuries are not supplied to the cheapest houses down that end of town, or the crudely constructed shacks that the very poorest inhabit. Even their power is often siphoned from a mains line using less-than-legitimate means).

With her school years completed, Cobalt (and Zircon, who aged out of the reapings the year before and had made his living selling black-market components that his younger siblings scrounged) now have a chance to use their sister's success to set themselves up for the rest of their lives.

I'm glad to see at least one of them has latched on to the opportunity, even though it does land me with the delightful task of arranging and supervising a play-date for my young victor.

~xXx~

I don't know what the pills are that Antimony takes the morning before her first shopping trip (really, the first time she's been outside of the Victor's Village since she moved in nearly six weeks before) but they seem to work. She draws into herself during the walk down the road to the bus stop, and while we ride the midday bus into the northern end of town, but she manages a smile for the driver who thanks her for the Parcel Days.

Theia, who is in fact only fifteen years old (though she could probably pass for twenty with the amount of make-up she wears) meets us outside the Justice Building and appears to remember a few of the warnings I gave her before agreeing to this shopping trip. At least, she doesn't grab at the young victor, keeps a bit of space between them as she points us towards the larger of the two clothing shops and moderates her voice to only slightly annoying levels of shrill chatter as she begins a lengthy discourse on Capitol Fashion.

Antimony goes along willingly enough, nodding along to the conversation, not particularly bothered that the other girl is doing all the talking. Once inside the store, Theia begins handing her outfits to try on, and instructs shop assistants to bring matching shoes or adjust their mirrors while Antimony docilely obeys.

I sit in the corner for the most part, on a little padded seat, and watch as the Capitol girl enjoys bossing everyone around. As well as the two-dozen racks of clothing items, the shop also has a computer station which can do a full body scan, and then be used to order items directly from the Capitol in the correct sizes. For a price that most people can't afford, of course, though I notice when I am summoned over to learn the intricacies from Miss Theia (along with a pointed reminder that my own wardrobe is quite dated), that the cost is only a little more than we would have paid in a Capitol store.

In the end, both Theia and Antimony (who seems to be surprised herself that she is having fun) bully me into a new dress and coat for my next public appearance. Both of them order half a dozen outfits each, using a combination of the displayed graphics and trying on the closest match the store has to check the fit or color.

I have to hurry them both out in the end so that we can make the evening bus back to the Village (it's more than an hour's walk otherwise) and Antimony accepts the invitation for another meeting at Theia's house to try on all the new clothes once they arrive next week.

The Capitol girl keeps chattering right until we join the queue for the bus and waves a cheerful farewell that earns her a few dark looks from the other passengers as we board. I turn to Antimony once we're seated and raise my eyebrows at her.

My young victor shrugs, and rubs her forehead with only a slight wince.

"She talks too much, but so do all of 'em. I'm getting better at tuning it out, I think. And it's nice to have stuff. You know, to _buy_ stuff. Before all we had was what we could scrounge or make or trade."

She looks almost embarrassed as she admits this. Not entirely unsurprising; from all my interactions with that end of the district, many of them pride themselves for their resourcefulness, and never having to pay for anything. Mostly because they can't, but it's become rather ingrained in their attitudes and culture; unlike the rest of us, _they_ aren't dependant on Capitol-approved methods for anything.

I leave it be for now—it's a battle Antimony will have to fight herself with her extended family, but I hope they all have the sense to see that she doesn't have much choice. As a victor with an extensive salary, she is expected to look and act the part.

The girl winces more as the bus ride goes on, and by the time we start the walk up the sloped road home, I can see she is struggling once more with her headaches.

"My doctor, he sent another three packs of them good pills. The ones that make it stop hurting for hours at a time, but he said that was it until the next time I'm in the Capitol," she says when I ask.

"I had one today, and one of them yellow ones that makes everything seem less, you know…makes everything a bit washy and happy. I only have ten of them left though. Do you know if I can get more?"

With a sinking feeling, I realize I may have missed the chance to nudge my young victor away from chemical dependence. Then again, I still take pills twice a day to mitigate my own symptoms (mostly the hand tremors, though they also help a little with my speech issues). Is what she is doing really any different? I guess not, and I doubt that she'll cope without them now in the short term. Any interventions, if I do decide to make them, will have to wait at least until after the Victory Tour, if not her first Games as a mentor.


End file.
